Epilogue

“But if we are to be told by a foreign power what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek and have contended hitherto for a very little.”

George Washington letter to Alexander Hamilton, May 8, 1796

When I posted the first edition of Walking In Your Footsteps on July 4, 2000, I believed it was only a matter of time before the people of Michigan embraced its message as the answer to the problems destroying our nation. There was no doubt in my mind that the people of Michigan would embrace my ideas because they were ideas that came from someone whose experience made him an expert on these matters. I knew that the year 2000 would be the year our national revival would begin.

As I departed for Ventura beach that beautiful Fourth of July, I did so with visions of pedophiles and career politicians hanging from the lamp posts on every street corner. I dreamed of watching the American people rise to take back their country from the career politicians destroying it. But most of all, I yearned to join those like me who were sexually abused turn the tables on those who brutalized us. I was filled with hatred and I could not wait to unleash it on those who have brutalized so many. Unfortunately, I did not only unleash it on men like Roger Joseph. I unleashed it on all those around me.

It has taken me many years to realize that the hatred that I carry within me knows no bounds. When Bishop Kevin Britt betrayed me in September 2000, I promised him that he would not survive my campaign to rid Michigan of pedophiles. Although I did not rid Michigan of her pedophiles, as only the people of Michigan can do that, I did rid her of some. But with a rage burning so hot within me, I could do nothing else but keep my promise to Bishop Kevin Britt. Jealously, envy, greed and lust are deadly sins for sure. But they do not compare to the power of pure and unadulterated hatred. You need only ask Kevin Britt to know the truth of this assertion.

Yes, I am bitter. Yes, I am angry that the people of Michigan did not rise with me to change the status quo. However, I have a right to be bitter and I have a right to be angry. If the people of Michigan had embraced the ideas contained within these pages I believe the rest of the states would have followed. And together we would have changed the status quo and our nation would be a long way towards returning America to her rightful place in the world.

As I look across this once great nation. I do not hear anyone advocating the type of change outlined in this book. I do not see anyone submitting for public debate anything approaching the formula found in this book. I also do not know of anyone save those who risk their lives every day in Iraq and Afghanistan that have placed everything they love on the line. The safety of my kids was always at risk as I worked to break pedophile ring after pedophile ring. But most costly of all was the sacrifice of my marriage. To have carried the hatred I had within me for so long without seeking help was bound to make me a monster. There are few things in this world as ugly as hatred. It makes everything and everyone it touches ugly.

When I departed California in early 2001 to disseminate Walking In Your Footsteps and create the Missing Angels Legal Fund Inc. I honestly believed that my life’s experiences, my words and my actions would unite not just the people of Michigan but all America under the banner of true reform. Believing I had found the formula that could change the status quo without bloodshed and save our nation from self-destruction, I was eager to preach the gospel of change to a nation in desperate need of it. Unfortunately, it appears the majority of Americans are either afraid to change the status quo or happy to watch this once great nation fall from grace.

The truth is that despite believing no publisher would print this book, I still spent almost two years of my life researching and writing this book and nearly five thousand dollars to self-publish it. But most costly of all was the nearly two years of my life that I did not play baseball with my son, teach my daughter to swim or show my wife just how much I love and cherish her. They too have paid a price for my dream just as the family of every serviceman pays a price for their loved ones dedication to our country.

The same is true for my work on behalf of Michigan’s children. Despite the lack of support from the people of Michigan in launching the Missing Angels Legal Fund Inc., I still spent the money I set aside for retirement in order to demonstrate to the One who loves children above all others that I knew His little ones were more important than my thirty thousand pieces of silver. In other words, I did what I did because I knew it was what He wanted me to do. And the only regret is that I should have left the hatred behind. I am sure it made more than a few people reject me and the ideas presented within these pages.

Yes, I wanted to educate the American people to exactly what awaited them in the future if they did not change the status quo. Yes, I wanted them to know that only through a national awakening, void of the petty political machinations of Washington D.C., could our nation survive. Yes, I hoped the American people would recognize my sacrifices by implementing the thoughts and ideas contained within these pages. But that has not happened. Instead, America’s publishers rejected my life’s work because it was not the “kind” of book they published. And most disconcerting of all, almost no one who read the book understood that unless the ideas and policies contained within these pages were embraced by the people, our nation was headed for a bloody civil war that will encompass aspects of class warfare, race warfare, religious warfare and of course cultural warfare. Do you doubt for a moment that our enemies abroad will not give the religious zealots among us the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons to use in their war of righteousness?

As the reader progresses through this book, they will discover just how simple it can be to institute the changes advocated here. In fact, I dedicated two chapters to this two-sided and peaceful revolution. Although these chapters may not provide the most tantalizing reading, they do address with absolute clarity not only why we need to reform these aspects of our society, but how to reform them. In the end it does not matter whose ideas these are, but that they are embraced for the truth they represent.

To me it was clear well before 2000 that any true reformation of American society would entail two separate and distinct efforts. The first effort, which must now be obvious to everyone, involves the reformation of the American political process. It is time for the American people to understand that a true reformation of the federal government and the American political process will only come about through a Second Continental Convention. It must be the people that change the status quo because the politicians will never do it. The second effort, which has been obvious to me since I was a teenager, is the reformation of the American criminal justice system. For anyone, liberal, conservative or otherwise, to argue that the American criminal justice system serves the interests of the people it was created to serve is to evince an ignorance so profound that it can only be explained by indifference.

In an effort to once more prove the truth of my assertions regarding our nation’s fall from grace, l offer not another story of the senseless murder of a black male at the hands of another black male. I will also not offer a story of the corrupt nature of the American political process. Instead, I offer an example of our nation’s fall from grace from my life. I have used my life’s experiences throughout this book because I thought it was the most effective way to informing the reader that I was not like the pundits of today who profess to know the solutions to our problems but have never experienced these problems firsthand.

Safely ensconced in the wealth and presumed safety of Howard County Maryland, it never crossed my mind that two young men would enter my home on my son’s birthday to assault him in the basement and then lie in wait outside to inflict even more serious bodily harm. On my son’s 16^th birthday, two cruel and malicious teenagers assaulted my son for no other reason than he told them to leave his party. After assaulting him in front of his guests, Raymond Brodsky, the really cruel and malicious teenager, took his “gang” outside my home and waited to attack my son for a second time.

The injuries inflicted during this second attack were so severe that my son needed emergency surgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Center to close the multiple fractures of his face. And yes, not one of them was held to account. Why? Because the State’s Attorney for Howard County wanted to 1) eliminate any discussion of gang activity in Howard County and 2) protect the son of a prominent family from Howard County. How else can you explain that the cruel and malicious teenager who orchestrated the attack was never charged despite assaulting my son twice? And how else can you explain that law enforcement made no effort to discover which of the young men brought a weapon into my home and which drove the getaway car.

To those who believe that there are still places in America where one can escape the violence I offer these words of advice. There are no more “safe” places in America. Youth violence, sexual assaults and every manner of theft and fraud are occurring everywhere in America. We, as a society, have finally created equality in the arena of victimization. From the safe and leafy enclaves of Howard County Maryland to the beach communities of Ventura County California, the violence that was once found primarily in America’s major cities can now be found all across our land of the free, home of the depraved. We, the people, have lost control of our borders, our criminals and our children and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

To argue that the American criminal justice system is not at the root of our nation’s decline is simply absurd. How else can we explain Methamphetamine labs in rural Nebraska and crack addicts in New Hampshire? Moreover, the failure to hold rapists and child abusers accountable is why rape and child abuse are at epidemic proportions. The fact that we continue to release these monsters back into society knowing they will rape again is precisely why they do not fear the consequences of their actions. They know that we are impotent to stop them. It is time that we prove them wrong. It is time we protect those who cannot protect themselves. To do otherwise is nothing less than cowardice. Likewise, as I watch more and more career politicians apologize for their criminal actions, I see no evidence that any of them are being held to account for their crimes in the same fashion as you or I would be held to account if we stole from our employer. How ironic that the charlatans are in fact stealing from their employers: us. Unfortunately, they are not just stealing our money. They are stealing something far more valuable. They are stealing our future - the same future so many Americans have fought and died to preserve.

When I wrote the following passage ten years ago, I did so with the sole objective of waking the American people to the monsters we, as a society, were creating. Therefore, I offer not just my actions as the founder and Director of the Missing Angels Legal Fund Inc., but the words I pray will prove to the American people that I saw the future and it was grim:

“When the economy slows, unemployment rises and a few million inmates are released, America will begin to experience an increase in violent crime that will continue for many years to come. Although this increase will not be dramatic, it will be steady and continuous and proof of this assertion can be found in two places. First, the ever-increasing violent nature of children stands as a shining example of what lies ahead. The effect of the violence inflicted upon our children, whether in the form of violent messages or physical and sexual abuse, is now beginning to reveal itself. If we think the violent messages sent to our children every day has no effect on them, then we are as ignorant as those who believe six, seven and eight year-old children can distinguish between violent images on television and real violence. The fact that children claim to understand the difference does not make it so. Second, America will experience an increase in violent crime because a large percentage of the current prison population will soon be eligible for parole. Angry, disillusioned and unemployed, these men will emerge more angry and violent than before their rehabilitation. Despite the fact that they served only a fraction of the sentences imposed upon them, their prison experiences changed them forever. Unfortunately, these changes were not for the better.

Whatever can be said of today's system of justice, the one thing that cannot be said is that it protects America’s women and children. How can it be that a man who rapes a child has paid his debt to society after a few years? How is it that a man who rapes a woman has paid his debt to society after a few months? The answer is that career politicians do not understand the pain and suffering of these victims. They are unaware of such suffering because they are so removed from reality preaching that crime has dropped while collecting millions for their re-election campaigns. We must never forget that their children are not being beaten nor are their women being raped.”

As Americans sleepwalk into the second decade of the 21^st century, there still exists in the world two undeniable facts. The first is that within society a small but growing percentage of men who care nothing for their fellow man. They represent the few who ruin life for the many. The second undeniable fact is that government is not the solution to the problems facing our nation. We, as citizens of a once great nation, are the solution to the problems. Government is only a tool through which some of society’s problems can be solved. Unfortunately, we have allowed government to become the tool through which injustice and inequality are maintained. This is why we must reform the federal government and the American criminal justice system before it is too late.

In conclusion, it is only fitting that I end this Epilogue with a passage that is as relevant today as it was ten years ago. It is another example of what I saw when I looked to see who was walking in my footsteps:

“As I look to an uncertain future, I pray that my generation does not leave as its legacy to the next generation a society where over one million women are raped every year while millions of children are abused before our very eyes. I for one do not want the next generation, my children, to believe that my generation bankrupted their future for the sake of political expediency. We simply cannot continue to accept these failures as a cost of living in a free society. Unfortunately, this is exactly what will happen if the status quo remains unchanged.”

Kevin D. Cox

State of Maryland

November 11, 2009

1 Walking In Your Footsteps

If I must choose between peace and righteousness,

I choose righteousness.

Theodore Roosevelt

Our moral compass has failed. We have lost our way and the tortured history of the 20^th century provides ample confirmation of this disturbing observation. The events of the past 100 years leaves no doubt that if we continue to embrace the status quo, the end result will be extinction of our species. This is why failure is not an option.

If that is not enough to motivate us to stop the madness, I offer this food for thought. If we fail to change the status quo before the next generation comes of age, they will do it for us. A generation desensitized to violence is scary enough, but a generation desensitized to violence that has abandoned individual responsibility is even more frightening.

I know this adjustment will not be easy. It will entail more than a mere mechanical adjustment. It will require that we adjust our very way of life. Although the sacrifices necessary to adjust our moral compass will be difficult, they will pale in comparison to the sacrifices our children will be forced make if we do not change the status quo. We owe it to them to make things right.

Many will doubt my assertion that our moral compass is broken. I know that millions of Americans believe the United States is the most moral nation on earth. Unfortunately, the domestic and foreign policies of the federal government and the indifference paid to them by the American people proves our country is not what many Americans think it is. For example, America’s unbridled version of capitalism is not that envisioned by those who founded our nation. On the contrary, it is a twisted and perverted form of capitalism that works to benefit the wealthy without any regard for the law or the less fortunate. Moreover, American democracy is anything but democratic. For anyone to describe the current political process in America as democratic is to evince one’s ignorance of how a democracy should operate. The American political process died the day career politicians were able to divide the country into two divisive political camps that are always at war for access to the American taxpayer’s purse.

Yes, I could provide numerous examples of career politicians who place greed before the welfare of the people and I could point to the myriad of illegal and immoral policies that emanate from the federal government. It would be easy to prove that the American political process serves the few at the expense of the many. However, I will offer none of these examples to prove America’s moral compass is broken. When compared to what is happening to America’s children, the above examples pale in comparison. One needs only understand what is being done to children all across our land of the free, home of the depraved to know our moral compass is broken and our nation falling from grace.

For those who are searching for a reason why America is falling from grace, they do not have to look any further than the abandonment of individual responsibility. The notion of individual responsibility has all but ceased to exist in American society. We have institutionalized personal liberty to such a degree that no one is ever held responsible for his or her actions. As long as someone can articulate a reason why someone else is to blame, no one is ever held responsible for their actions. This attitude is inimical to the America created by Thomas Jefferson and others in the crucible of the American Revolution. More importantly, if left unchecked, this attitude will lead to the inevitable decline of America and humanity. With that said, I assert that it is time we, the enabled, give birth to a new age; an Age of Responsibility.

Over the course of my life, I have asked myself repeatedly whether we, as species, deserve the right to reign as undisputed masters of this earth. Although I began this inquiry as a relative child, I did not discover the answer for many, many years. I recall asking myself this question one Sunday night when I was not yet a teenager. What sparked this inquisition was an episode of the TV series, “World at War.” The episode in question addressed the “final solution” of the Jewish problem. Although I had never met a Jew or a Nazi, I was quite sure that the murder of innocent Jewish women and children was not the work of good men. And as I watched and listened to Lawrence Olivier describe what had occurred in Europe, I wondered how it was possible that human beings could do such things to other human beings simply because of something the victims had no control over (i.e. their birth and/or national origin). From that day forward, I wanted to learn everything possible about what happened during the Second World War. I was sure I could find the answer if I studied those fateful years.

My search for an answer lead me on a journey that until a few years ago consumed more of my time than high school, college, law school or the practice of law. I was obsessed with understanding why or, in the absence of a reason why, then how men could perpetrate such an unmitigated evil as that witnessed in Europe in the 1940s. I believed if I read voraciously about the German people, the Jewish people, the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party, the Weimar Republic, the First World War, the inter-war years and the Second World War, I would find the answer. I was wrong.

Although I studied the German language, understood German history and traveled throughout Germany, I could not find the answer to why men would or could do such terrible things. What I did find were a people of culture and beauty. I learned that the sons of Germany included such venerable figures as Ludwig Von Beethoven, the Grimm brothers, and of course, the poet, dramatist, painter and philosopher Johann Ludwig von Goethe. Goethe’s Faust sparked the imagination of one young and confused boy. Yet, it was not Germany’s sons that provided the answer to my question. It was one of Germany’s daughters that educated me to the cruelty of men who use government to serve their ends.

As I studied German history, a woman of peace named Rosa Luxemburg fascinated me. Her devotion to peace and the good will of men lead me on a journey to understand why governments, made up of good men, could cause so much harm. Rosa helped me understand that the German people were as loyal to their government as I was to my government. In short, Rosa proved to me that the German people were and are just as kind, caring, cruel and inhumane as any other people.

Yet I still did not find the answer to how the genocide in Europe could have happened. It was not until I understood Rosa’s life and death that I finally realized I was asking the wrong question. The correct question was not how the holocaust could have happened, but rather why it has not happened more often. I do not mean to assert that the last government sanctioned genocide occurred in Europe in the 1940s. It has occurred many times since, but not nearly as many times as it will occur in the future if we, the enabled, do not change the status quo. In the world of rising temperatures and diminishing resources, it is not hard to imagine what will happen to a billion hungry mouths when the food runs out. Genocide may yet become public policy for many of the world’s nations.

If there is only one lesson history and the life of Rosa Luxemburg can teach us it is that good men are capable of unimaginable horrors when asked to do so by their government. One need only review the short history of our species to confirm this very disturbing observation. Even if our species had no history, judgment of us could rest upon one simple and undeniable fact: a child starves to death every twenty seconds on our planet. This sad but undeniable fact may be all the evidence a superior species judging humanity needs to pass judgment on us. And if the above fact is not enough to convince you that government must be controlled, a study of American history should surely suffice.

The government of the United States has implemented programs and policies resulting in the near genocide of indigenous people, supported slavery although declaring that all men were created equal and to date is the only nation to use nuclear weapons on other human beings. I believe the above to be irrefutable proof that good men, or at least men that believe they are acting upon pure motives, are capable of unspeakable acts of horror in the name of government. This is why we must control government and not vice versa.

As for why our species deserves the right to rule the planet, I was still searching for that answer as 1998 dawned. It was not until the morning of January 19, 1998 that I discovered the answer. This revelation occurred shortly after my second child was born. While driving home along Route 66 from Apple Valley, CA, I realized the only reason our species is permitted to continue its tortured existence is our children. The birth of every child carries with it the hope for a better tomorrow because the innocence of childhood represents the best humanity has to offer. Although this may sound silly and far too simple an analysis considering the question, it is not. The children of the world represent the future and if we want a glimpse of the future, we need only look at the children of today to see what tomorrow will bring. The violence we see emanating from our children is truly frightening. What is even more frightening is that this generation will be responsible for caring for the greatest number of senior citizens in history. In a few years time, the entire baby-boom generation will be retired. Seventy million people being kept alive longer by the Age of Technology. What will happen to all these seniors when their care rests in the hands of a generation completely desensitized to violence? To this generation, euthanasia will take on a whole new meaning. It may even be viewed as a moral obligation when the world’s resources begin to dry-up.

I believe it self-evident that a safer society produces citizens who care about their fellow man. Although I cannot support this assertion with any studies or polls, I can point to the past fifty years and ask the reader to answer these questions: When individuals were held responsible for their actions were our children not healthier and safer? Has the frequency of child abuse increased over the last fifty years? Although there are no accurate statistics to confirm these assertions, I believe the answer to these questions is a resounding, “Yes!”

When I completed the first draft of this book on December 31, 1999 there were numerous statistics cited that supported my assertions regarding both the widespread nature of child abuse in the world and the increasing violence against women and children in America. Nevertheless, I did not include them because I know that statistics can be and often are twisted to serve the political, social or economic agendas of those who use them. I do not want to be labeled as someone who used statistics in such a fashion. If the American people cannot see the truth of my assertions by using their common sense and experience, they will never be convinced that our moral compass is broken and our nation falling from grace.

Child abuse comes in many forms but for the purposes of brevity I will focus primarily on sexual abuse. Such reprehensible conduct has recently become more popular among the depraved individuals who would gratify their carnal desires at the expense of a child. Child sexual exploitation sits near the top the list of crimes for which our species’ will be held accountable. The only question that remains is when we will be held accountable. As for the physical abuse of children, I invite every American to visit a public hospital in any major city. I want you to watch as our nation’s children parade through the emergency rooms with their broken bones, lacerated limbs and swollen faces. I want you to see the bruises on their bodies. I want you to see the America I see. Nevertheless, we shall leave these “statistics” for historians as they calculate the role physical abuse in all its ugly forms played in the demise of our once great nation. The sexual abuse being inflicted on children around the world is what I will focus on because it proves our moral compass is broken.

20. The increasing transnationalization of the problem of child sexual exploitation is most disconcerting. When the situation seems to improve in one country, the problem arises in another part of the world, thereby being perpetuated and aggravated. For example, Eastern Europe has come to the fore in recent years as a new market for child sexual exploitation. Meanwhile, sex tourism has become more widespread across all continents. Paedophiles from developed countries are known to visit developing countries to victimize children. Two issues invite current debate in this regard: the responsibility of consumers/customers, including those possessing child pornography; and the possibility of extending national jurisdiction to cover crimes committed abroad by a country’s nationals.

21. At times, the transnational trafficking of children is linked with abduction and disappearance of children across frontiers. In the absence of multilateral and bilateral agreements to facilitate the tracing and return of those children, the scenario remains intractable and opaque.[[5]]

8. Spiral factor and chain effect

30. The term "spiral factor" is used to describe the phenomenon whereby the sex trade is spiraling towards very young victims. While traditionally some customers believed that, by resorting to young victims, they could rejuvenate themselves, there is now the equally disturbing trend of believing that, if they select the young, they can protect themselves from the threat of HIV/AIDS. In many quarters, therefore, the victims are becoming younger and younger, and the threat to their health is doubly worrying because it is often the customers who infect them with venereal diseases or HIV/AIDS.[[6]]

A child as a sexual partner is the most perverse practice that exists on this earth. Moreover, the effects of this practice take an enormous toll on society. When a child is raped or molested, the psychological effects usually are not manifested until years later. When they do manifest, it is usually with great severity. As I will discuss later and in great detail, the abuse of children is the least reported crime. In fact, it is not even considered worthy of inclusion into the Department of Justice’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs). I have included in the chapter “Hell is for Children” an in-depth analysis of the UCRs. For now, it is only important that the reader understand that the Department of Justice does not believe sexual abuse of children important enough to include in their vaunted UCRs.

In addressing the relationship between physical abuse and sexual abuse, Mr. Muntarbhorn again describes the situation with great clarity:

31. Parallel to this trend, the term "chain effect" denotes the linkage between various forms of malpractice and the fact that one form may lead to another. This is most evident in the case of child abuse, where the abused person may subsequently become an abuser. This is also a visible cause of family disintegration, which may compel children to run away from home and then resort to prostitution as a means of subsistence. The process may evolve into child pornography, which is only one step away from prostitution.

32. Children in such difficulties may become dependent on narcotics, which in turn leads to greater dependence on prostitution and/or pornography as a means of purchasing drugs. The child's attachment to criminal patterns thus intensifies over time.

33. This chain effect prompts us to view the question of child sexual exploitation as a growing dynamic that has a range of negative consequences. To break that vicious cycle, more than a legalistic approach is required.[[7]]

I am in complete agreement with Mr. Muntarbhorn with respect to his assertion that to break this "vicious cycle, more than a legalistic approach is required." The law has failed to protect these angels. Therefore, if our lawmakers refuse to act, paralyzed by the very bureaucracy they created, we must act regardless of the protection accorded these monsters by the law. Our moral obligation to act outweighs the conventional wisdom of the day that says we “leave it up to the politicians” to handle. Remember, our children represent the future and as such the fate of our nation hangs in the balance.

Mr. Muntarbhorn’s description of what is occurring to children around the world is indeed disturbing. However, we do not need to travel the globe to find tragedy. The greatest tragedy in America today is that which surrounds abused children. The number of abused children in America is staggering just as the number of children reported missing is disturbing. Although many children are eventually accounted for, the number unaccounted for continues to grow. Rather than acknowledge the problem or even make the American public aware of this tragedy, politicians simply refuse to address it. They refuse to address the issue of missing and abused children because there is supposedly no evidence to prove that pedophiles are responsible for the disappearance of so many children. They will argue that there is no great conspiracy among men to abduct and murder children and then dispose of the bodies in order to destroy the evidence. Our elected officials will argue that there is no evidence of a conspiracy among pedophiles as a group. They are wrong and their ignorance is costing the lives of so many innocent children!

We know pedophiles operate in rings. Unfortunately, the rings law enforcement uncovers are almost always those that do not murder children and dispose of their bodies. The truth is that the pedophiles that are caught are those who molest, fondle and otherwise assault children in less intrusive ways than anal and/or oral sodomy. These pedophiles molest because they believe they can satisfy their carnal desires without resorting to intercourse or oral sex. Most pedophiles that rape children understand that such acts leave physical marks (evidence). When they act upon their carnal desires, they must abduct the child and then dispose of the body after they are satisfied. We have seen this repeatedly.[[8]] The truth stares us in the face and yet we do nothing. My question to the American people and the world is; has it ever occurred to you that so many of the children depicted in child pornography videos are never identified or found?

Germans have a word for this avoidance of discourse: Vermeidungsdiskurs. Although many will not be surprised that Germans have a word for this refusal to deal with the truth, what might be surprising is that when a child is raped and murdered in Germany, the people realize the importance of apprehending the criminal. Germans will forfeit rights that many Americans consider “sacred” in order to apprehend such a monster.[[9]] The German people embrace the philosophy that civil order and respect for the law are the foundation of a free society. This is the primary reason why Germany is virtually crime free as compared to the land of the free, home of the depraved.

Politicians know the connection between pedophilia and missing children but they refuse to address the issue because they know there is only one way to prevent this slaughter. They know the solution is to identify and incarcerate pedophiles even if the crime occurred long ago. Our politicians will never advocate for such a policy because it is radical. They know that to advocate a radical position is to jeopardize re-election. They abhor bad publicity. It is the fear of bad publicity that drives all their decisions.

Mr. Muntarbhorn concludes his report by informing us what we, as a society, must do to stop this tragedy. In his “Conclusions And Recommendations,” Mr. Muntarbhorn specifically addresses what the community must do to stop the sexual exploitation of children. In a few sentences, Mr. Muntarbhorn describes exactly what we, the enabled, must do to protect our children from those who prey upon them:

157. At the national level, one is struck by the need to broaden the range of catalysts which could help to protect children. Governments can never tackle such problems alone, precisely because these are community problems requiring community vigilance and participation. While one should call for more effective performance by government agencies, the role of non-governmental organizations and the community sector, including children themselves, is equally important. Their efforts should be harnessed as part of the social mobilization to tackle the root causes and effects of child sexual exploitation and provide the necessary remedies, while facilitating the rehabilitation process for the victims. Parents’ organizations, religious groups, community development organizations, children’s groups, medical and lawyers’ associations, and the mass media are some of the non-governmental entities that can help. Their initiatives also need government recognition, and incentives for their contribution to social development should be provided in such areas as tax exemptions and other facilities.[[10]]

I have witnessed many terrible things in my life. I have seen what good men are capable of doing in the name of government. I also know what pedophiles do for fun. However, it was not until I realized that being indifferent in the face of evil had the same effect as being evil that I knew I could no longer remain silent. When so many of my friends were abused, I could only imagine how many others were abused as well. And as one whose abuse did not cripple his development, I had a chance to live a normal life where so many others never did. I finally understood the truth. When we face our maker, we will not be asked, “Why did you break man’s law in stopping this abuse?” Rather, we will be asked, “Why we broke His law in allowing this heinous practice to continue.” I will not be one to whom He presents such a question.

The sexual abuse of a child is nothing more than a form of slavery. When slavery was accepted in America and individuals acted to free slaves or aid them in the journey to freedom, were these individuals acting contrary to the law? Were they criminals in their time? The answer to both of these questions is, “yes.” However, they were only criminals with respect to a misguided legal construct of men. Such individuals were upholding something higher; a natural law created by Him from whom those that endorsed slavery had inexcusably strayed. And when these brave men and women of conscience stood before God, they were embraced. Will you be so embraced?

On February 25, 1999, the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, CA held the International Symposium and Eyewitness Testimony on Slavery Today. The information obtained was startling to say the least. Slavery is alive and well in Africa and Asia. Trafficking of women and children is as profitable today as it was three hundred years ago. The only difference between then and today is that today, as civilized men and women living in a technology-dominated consumer world, we can act to make a difference. The ugly reality is, however, that we do not. The reality that is 21^st century Asia and Africa is beyond the scope of this book. However, the failures of these “developing” nations cannot be so easily passed off to the more developed nations simply because developed nations are more prosperous. Intelligent people continue to argue that it is the fault of developed nations that such horrors occur. I disagree. The horrors of modern day slavery rest squarely on the shoulders of the men and women that profit from this peculiar institution. Nevertheless, what is occurring in Asia and Africa is indeed disturbing, but even in the most powerful and developed nation on earth, we see the signs of indifference to child sexual abuse at the highest seats of the federal government.

Child pornography exploded in the 1970s with the advent of video technology. Before this advancement in video technology, the pedophile had been restricted to 8mm film. The profit motive for making child pornography on poor quality 8mm film did not exist. This was to change with Sony’s invention of the Betamax. In response to the proliferation of home video and the horrible but profitable practice of child pornography, the United States Congress (Congress) enacted the Child Protection Act of 1984.[[11]] As with almost every federal criminal law, it failed to stop the conduct it intended to eradicate.

In United States v. X-Citement Video Inc.,[[12]] the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the interests of video distributors outweighed the interests of society even when that interest was the prevention of child sex abuse. Even more confusing was that the decision was seven to two, with Chief Justice Rehnquist writing for the majority. All seven Justices should be ashamed! In writing for the majority in X-Citement Video, Chief Justice Rehnquist reasoned that the “scienter” or knowledge requirement as to the age of the children in the videos was an element the government would have to prove in order to support a conviction. In fact, Chief Justice Rehnquist had such little regard for sexually abused children that he referred to these victims as “performers.”

In laymen’s terms, if the government could not prove that the distributor of the pornography knew the age of the “performers,” the distributors and sellers of child pornography are guilty of violating the law. Although I agree with the majority that the statute was poorly written, I disagree that Congress intended for such a “knowledge” requirement to apply. I believe Congress intended for criminal liability to attach regardless of whether or not the pornographer or his distributor knew the age of the “performer.”

The majority opinion stands for the belief that the burden pornographers and video distributors would have to shoulder, with respect to knowing the ages of their “performers,” is so great as to create a chilling effect on their right to distribute their “product” without criminal liability. We cannot deny that their decision favored the rights of pornographers and not the children used for sex. Moreover, by deciding this case as it did, I believe the U.S. Supreme Court placed the business interests of video distributors above the public interest in stopping child pornography. We know we live in a society turned upside down when such reasoning rules the day. I would be remiss if I did not point out that there were two men, Justices Scalia and Thomas, who sided with the “performers” - our children. If you want to read how the legal issues should have been decided, please read Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion. History will record these men as being men of conscience and the rest simply sly protectors of the status quo.

The reasoning behind Chief Justice Rehnquist’s opinion runs contrary to the teachings of Judeo-Christian thought. It also runs counter to the public policy establishing statutory rape as a crime. During my service as a Judge Advocate with the United States Army (Army JAG), I represented young Soldiers court-martialed for statutory rape. Although the girls with whom they had sex “looked eighteen” and fully consented to the act, such appearance and consent did not excuse the crime. I informed each young soldier accused of this crime that the fact he did not know the age of the young girl was irrelevant. What was relevant was the fact that the girl was under sixteen made sexual intercourse with her a felony. Despite evidence supporting the accused’s contention that the girl encouraged him to have sex with her and supplied the condom, he was guilty of statutory rape. I do not believe my clients understood that what they had done was a crime. Nevertheless, our society believes that no matter what an individual thinks or is told about a minor’s age, sexual intercourse with a minor is rape. Yet, the U.S. Supreme Court will not hold child pornographers and the sellers of such vile trash to the same standard. Their reasoning is unfathomable. Statutory rape and child pornography statutes have as their goal the same thing: prevention of child sexual abuse. I wish the judicial branch of my government would also pursue the same goal!

A recent development in American jurisprudence has led me to believe that even more members of the judicial branch of the federal government care nothing for the health and safety of our children. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in San Francisco, struck down a major portion of the 1996 Child Pornography Protection Act on the grounds that computer generated images of children having sex with adults is protected free speech. Judge Donald M. Molley believes that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from enacting a law like the Child Pornography Protection Act. It appears as if Judge Molley believes that to generate images of non-existing children engaged in sex with adults is an expression of free speech. I will never believe the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was intended to protect this kind of speech. Yet, this perversion of our Founding Father’s words is exactly what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals embraces.[[13]]

There is no doubt that the continued increase in child sexual abuse in America will lead to a generation believing the perverse to be the norm. Our future leaders will emerge from this generation desensitized to the horrors of child sexual abuse. Moreover, such placidity will produce a generation of taxpayers that care even less for their fellow man. Americans must ask themselves if the next generation will consider sex with children permissible so long as no permanent physical harm comes to the child. In the interests of personal liberty and freedom of expression, will a man be allowed to express his love for children through sexual relations with them? It sickens me even to think of just such a possibility. However, it frightens me more to consider the answer likely to be forthcoming from a victimized and desensitized generation. What should be alarming to Americans is that there is a movement today that promotes just such a belief. This organization of men calls itself the North American Man and Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). We need to search no further to find the enemies of our children. We need to look no farther for proof that our moral compass is broken.

Child abuse is a far more severe problem in America than is commonly recognized. The simple truth is that when a child is physically abused, he or she is much more likely to physically abuse children in turn. I believe the facts support this contention. As one who defended Soldiers who were abused as children, I saw this vicious pattern firsthand. Yet, the most persuasive evidence that the next generation of children will be more violent than previous generations is the growing savagery of their violence. Up to the early 1980s, two teenagers would fight and the only injuries sustained would be a broken nose, a cut or two and possibly broken teeth. During the 1980s, the rules of the game changed and I saw and experienced the explosion of juvenile crime firsthand. Guns became a necessity for the youth of America's large cities. Whether because of the violence associated with the narcotics trade or the sheer number of violent images thrown at my generation, it became commonplace for teenagers to carry firearms of every type and I was no exception. Drugs, money and violence changed the children of my generation and the evidence supporting this assertion is all around us.

2 This Land Is Your Land

But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

Henry David Thoreau

Big government is inherently inefficient and waste is its greatest byproduct. Notwithstanding this fact, without a properly functioning central government, America cannot maintain her status in the world. Therefore, it is imperative that the federal government not only successfully performs the tasks required of it under the U.S. Constitution, but that it performs these tasks in an efficient and fiscally responsible manner. If America is to survive, the American people must reform their central government and they must do so before it is too late.

Ever since the New Deal we, as a society, have propagated a child-like faith in the federal government to achieve whatever goal our politicians articulated. As this perception grew, politicians and bureaucrats used this faith to centralize power in Washington D.C. In so doing, the federal government shielded itself from the scrutiny of the people - a people that reside in the union of separate and distinct states. Under the guise of federal supremacy, politicians and those that wish to manipulate the federal government convinced the people that whatever the federal government does, it does for the good of the people. The idea that the federal government could one day become a tyrant has never entered the minds of those who believe government is the path to social well-being.

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French scholar and philosopher who came to America to study democracy in the 19^th century. His work, Democracy in America, stands as a warning to all free men that democracy can become a tyrant. It was De Tocqueville who coined the phrase “democratic despotism.”

De Tocqueville believed that this tyranny of democracy would not be an alien dictatorship imposed by conquerors on a rebellious people, but rather it would manifest itself as a spreading paralysis of will, a failure of nerve and a gradual erosion of individual responsibility. In Democracy in America de Tocqueville wrote:

“A democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans, might offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism; it would be a despotism more extensive and more mild than any previous; it would degrade men without tormenting them¼ Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannite, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

De Tocqueville understood what would happen when government began serving itself rather than the people. In other words, he foresaw government by special interest.

Our beliefs as to what government is capable of accomplishing must be re‑examined in light of our enormously complex society. The fact that the federal government continues to grow in both size and scope of authority while the problems plaguing society remain unsolved proves that the federal government cannot solve the problems facing the governed. The question we must ask is why the federal government continues to drain our national treasure to pay for failed policies and programs.

I believe the answer to this question is simple. Career politicians and the faceless, nameless bureaucrats and lobbyists that serve them have failed to realize that the problems destroying our nation are in fact problems that can only be solved by the states and the people residing in those states. Health care, crime, education and economic development are perfect examples of problems that can only be solved by the states. The federal government was created to address very specific problems that transcend the individual state and it is time the federal government concentrates only on these problems. Yes, there are certain areas of our national existence that only the federal government should address. These areas include, but are not limited to, energy, transportation and defense. These areas of our national existence transcend the idea of state sovereignty and therefore must be left to the federal government to address.

However, we cannot forget that it was the fear of an all powerful central government that haunted our Founding Fathers. They knew what the federal government was capable of becoming and I believe their worst fears have been realized. What better proof can there be than the fact that the federal government spends over 2 trillion dollars every year to secure our common defense and promote the general welfare while the problems facing our nation only worsen.

The message of this chapter is simple. If we do not reduce the size and scope of authority presently exercised in Washington D.C., such inaction will destroy our union of fifty separate and distinct states. The result will find each state nothing more than a geographical area made up of communities beholden to federal law and federal dollars. More importantly, if we do not effectuate this reformation, the people of this once great nation will never again exercise true power over the affairs of government. Instead, the federal government will exercise absolute power over them through its ever-expanding bureaucracy, repressive taxation and of course its ever oppressive unfunded mandates. If, however, the American people do reform the federal government, the result will be more efficient and effective government. By returning to the states the authority granted them under the U.S. Constitution, we will also begin the process of adjusting our nation’s moral compass one corrupt career politician at a time.

Since the states were once the primary governing bodies within our nation of states, it is altogether fitting and proper that the states again become the governmental entities responsible for the health, safety and welfare of the people without interference by the federal government. To allow the federal government to intrude into every aspect of its citizen’s lives is a perversion of everything for which the Founding Fathers stood. We must stop the destruction of our once indivisible union.

Yet before the reader progresses any further, it is imperative that one thing be made perfectly clear. Discussion surrounding the reformation of the federal government is by the very nature of the subject matter dull. I cannot stress this point enough. The fact that the issues surrounding the expansion of the federal government are so boring is exactly what the faceless, nameless bureaucrats rely on to ensure the maintenance of the status quo. They want us to tune out. They want us to say, “Who cares.” They want us to say “voting does not matter.”

If the issues surrounding the reformation of the federal government were as interesting as the issues that surround the economy, the American people would have changed the status quo long ago. With that said, my greatest fear is that the reader will put down this book because the material in this chapter is boring and the issues to complex. If there is any one thing that should motivate the reader to reform the federal government, it is this: by reforming the federal government, each of us can save thousands and thousands of dollars each year. This is to say nothing of the benefits that arise when the people control their government and not it control them.

Thomas Paine said, "Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one." Many years later, the esteemed author and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson echoed this sentiment with his prophetic words, "The less government we have, the better." And even more enlightening are the words of the father of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison; “A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both.” This common theme of less government has been constant throughout American history for two very meaningful reasons.

First, government, by its very nature, intrudes upon the lives of the governed thereby stifling growth. Second, government has no bottom line. There is no baseline or benchmark by which to judge governmental performance and as such no one in government is held to account for failing. This is even more so when the political process created to hold them accountable has been hijacked by a ruling class indifferent to the cries of the people. This inability to hold government officials accountable leads to the perpetuation of failed policies and programs. And the result is what we find in Washington D.C. today.

"Today, the greatest issue in America and all of mankind is the encroachment of government in the mastery of their lives." Former President Herbert Hoover delivered these words to the Centennial Convention of the Republican Party. As for how government encroaches upon our lives, one must first understand what these rights are before one can understand how those rights are being encroached upon. The first place to look for these rights is the Declaration of Independence. The inalienable rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness are not vague ideas. They are rights given to men by God and as such provide the moral framework upon which a free society can prosper and men live together in peace.

Understanding this universal truth, I believe that the Founding Fathers wanted to equate the words “life, liberty and happiness” with the Golden Rule, which requires that we should only do unto others, as we would have them do unto us. They wanted these words to also equate to freedom from repressive government. The Founding Fathers wanted to set this proverb to their “modern” age because they cherished the right of man to pursue his dream in his own way. They wanted their new nation to be a place where men were required by God and the law to allow their fellow man the right to live in peace. I believe this was the very essence of the Age of Reason just as I know it must be the essence of the Age of Responsibility.

Over the course of my professional life, I have sought to understand the federal government’s continued failure to address the critical problems facing the average American; problems that were and are affecting the inalienable rights that the Founding Fathers, our grandfathers and fathers fought and died to preserve. A perfect example of this failure is our politicians’ refusal to address in real terms both the reality behind the continued growth of government and the complete failure of the social programs created by it to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. Congress continues to vote for greater expenditures using our children’s money in spite of the American people's desire for less government. Moreover, Congress continues to waste taxpayer dollars on social programs everyone knows have failed.

How is it that politicians get away with this breach of trust? The answer is simple. There is no accountability where there is no bottom line. I have witnessed with my own eyes how these pork-hungry politicians and termination-proof bureaucrats are allowed to commit acts of misconduct without ever being held accountable. These faceless, nameless bureaucrats and career politicians are the modern day Praetorian Guards[[14]] defending their emperor: the status quo. Rather than serve a noble cause, such as protecting the Emperor, these modern day Praetorian Guards worship their $125,000 a year salaries, their three day work weeks, their complete immunity from accountability and, of course, the ease of their workloads.

A failing education system is of paramount concern to the Friedmans. Rather than point to the decay of the family or violence on television as causes for our public schools’ failure to educate, the Friedmans argue that the real cause for the utter failure of our public school system is the centralization and bureaucratization of public education.[[18]] I agree with the Friedmans that competition must be instilled in our public school system. However, competition alone will not suffice to positively affect the lethargy stifling the public school system. As a society, we must focus on the environment in which our children are educated. The physical environment in which children are educated must be free of drugs, gangs and the criminal elements poisoning the learning environment. A policy of zero tolerance for school violence is but one step in that direction. Only when our children feel safe will they be able to learn.[[19]]

Citing to a report issued by the National Commission on Excellence in Education (Commission),[[20]] the Friedmans correctly opine that this report was long on platitudes and short on solutions. This should not surprise anyone since it was the Secretary of Education that appointed the Commission. Moreover, if the Commission had addressed the issues in a truthful manner, the inescapable conclusion would have been that the federal government has failed in its efforts to better educate our children. It is imperative that the American people understand that the time has come to abolish the Department of Education. Responsibility for the education of our children belongs in the hands of parents and teachers residing in the states.

I must divert from the lessons contained within Tyranny of the Status Quo in order to prove, once and for all, that the Department of Education must be abolished. If there is any doubt as to what the Department of Education is all about, I assure you it has nothing to do with education. I offer, as a glaring example both of our politicians’ wanton disregard of our children’s education and their use of our tax dollars to further their own self-interests, an October 3, 1999 article appearing in the Los Angels Times. “Department a Haven for Clinton Loyalists” made it crystal clear for all to read that the Department of Education is a dumping ground for friends and relatives of Washington’s political elite. The Department of Education is nothing more than a bloated bureaucracy where political hacks, useless bureaucrats and friends of those in power earn substantial salaries while doing almost nothing. It was also clear from the article that many of those in charge at the Department of Education have little or no experience in education. How can this be? The answer is simple. Politicians are less concerned with your child's education than with rewarding the fundraisers who satisfy their greed. This is the perversion that is Washington D.C. and it sickens me.

Although the Los Angeles Times article focused primarily on Clinton Administration appointees, this abuse of the taxpayer (and their children) is by no means solely a Democratic Party abuse. The Republicans, even in contradiction to what President Reagan espoused, also misused the Department of Education. When Ronald Reagan campaigned for the presidency in 1980, he called for the abolishment of the Department of Education. He wanted it abolished because he knew the federal government had no authority under the U.S. Constitution to exercise power in this area of our national existence. Moreover, he knew that the federal government’s involvement would only result in a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars. He was right. President Reagan knew education was the responsibility of the individual states and the parent(s) of each child. President Reagan was, however, besieged from the very start of his Administration by the faceless, nameless bureaucrats who wanted to use the Department of Education just as it is used today. I believe President Reagan gave up his fight to abolish the Department of Education because he believed that a better use of his "political capital" would be to spend it on national defense. He saw that communism in Europe was on its last leg and wanted to deliver the final blow.

The very idea that society is to blame for the criminal conduct of others is the very foundation of William Jefferson Clinton’s legacy. Whether it was President Clinton’s countless apologies on our behalf for crimes committed by people long dead or his party’s support of causes that lay blame in places other than where it belongs, President Clinton’s legacy finds fertile ground in the denial of individual responsibility. Yet, the greatest legacy of President Clinton may very well turn out to be his socialist wife. Her ideas, philosophies and beliefs can be summed up in one sentence: government is the answer to the problems facing society. With this in mind, I invite Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton to read Jonathan Kozol’s Amazing Grace: The Lives Of Children And The Conscience Of A Nation.[[25]] Mr. Kozol’s work concentrated on a very small section of the state of New York: the south Bronx. Since Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton represents the great state of New York, I am eager to see how she will help the children of that small section of New York. I look forward to her vision and ideas on how the federal government can solve the problems plaguing these children. I want to see Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton standing before the children of the south Bronx explaining why the federal government and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have failed to ease the hunger pains in their bellies. I want to hear her explain why the federal government has been unable to eliminate the fear that permeates their daily lives. I want her to explain how a compassionate criminal justice system will stop the men who beat and rape them. I want to hear her scream of a right wing conspiracy to rape and murder the children of the south Bronx. I want to hear more of her lies.

Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and The Conscience of A Nation is disturbing in the extreme. Mr. Kozol’s examination of one small corner of New York tells much about our society. Just thinking of the conditions under which these children live kept me awake at night. In fact, on my last trip to New York City, I rode the subway from Manhattan to the South Bronx to see for myself exactly what Mr. Kozol had described. Although I did not see any water rats, what I did see was the hypocrisy of American society. I too found it hard to believe that such wealth could co-exist in the same place as such poverty. In New York, the bastion of progressive liberalism, the failures of the federal government's plans and polices to bridge the gap between the rich and poor are plain for all to see.

Mr. Kozol proves that the problems facing the children of the south Bronx have not and cannot be solved by big government. Only by replacing the all-encompassing drive for more individual liberty with the novel concept of individual responsibility will the children of the south Bronx have a chance to develop the traits necessary to succeed in life. Only by truly punishing those that ravish our children will we prevent these crimes from happening again. Whether it is the rats, the drugs, the deplorable living conditions or the despair that Mr. Kozol identifies, the fact remains that the failed social programs of the past four decades are responsible for the plight of so many forgotten children.

It is a fact that since the Great Society’s war on poverty, the federal government has spent trillions of taxpayer dollars to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor. The result of the enormous expenditure of our national treasure has been and continues to be a widening the gap between the rich and the poor. I do not need to cite any polls, studies or newspaper articles to support this assertion. The Age of Technology has provided us with ample evidence of this fact and the fact that the gap is widening at an accelerated pace. As you reflect upon the programs and policies of the federal government, it should become clear that whenever the federal government spends taxpayer dollars to fix a problem intended for the states to address, the problem worsens. The facts surrounding the federal government’s performance in the social arena and my life experiences overwhelmingly support this assertion.

Our current notions regarding the proper role of the federal government in our national existence was born during a time when people thought problems could be solved if enough money was thrown at a problem. In short, “big government” is the by-product of an era in which government was perceived by the majority of the people to be the solution to the most serious problems facing society. It was accepted by almost everyone that if enough resources were thrown at a problem, the problem would be solved. This is how the baby-boom generation worked to solve problems facing them. Unfortunately, it is not how our children will solve the problems facing them. They will have their own methods of problem solving.

The idea that a bureaucracy can evolve to such a state that it begins to serve itself through expansion is not a new idea. Although I have seen this practice in person, I was unaware that there existed a school of thought surrounding this phenomenon. A friend informed me that there were people who believed such a phenomenon actually exists. This idea or philosophy was given a name: Public Choice Economics. Put simply, Public Choice Economics holds that a bureaucracy feeds off itself, thus enabling it to grow.[26] This is exactly what federal bureaucrats have been doing ever since the New Deal. This self-serving, ever-expanding perpetuation of government to serve government is the result of decades of politicians and bureaucrats expanding their empires in order promote their own existence. The Navy Office of General Counsel serves as an excellent example of this phenomenon. As the U.S. Navy is downsized, the number of civilian attorneys serving the U.S. Navy remains constant. The U.S. Navy shrinks while faceless, nameless bureaucrats masquerading as lawyers profit from the downsizing. In fact, the senior leadership of the Navy Office of General Counsel touts this accomplishment. They even have the nerve to argue that ever more complex laws and the litigation resulting from the downsizing of the U.S. Navy justify their bloated existence. They, like the other faceless, nameless bureaucrats that use the federal government to serve their interests, must be rooted out because they represent all that is wrong with public service.

I know many Americans would like to see an end to the federal government’s withholding so much of our hard-earned money. Yet the truth is that for America to prosper in the 21^st century, a strong federal government is necessary. It must, however, be a government severely reduced in both size and scope of authority. Only by reducing the federal government in size and scope of authority can we be assured that it will truly serve the needs of the American people and not the politicians, bureaucrats and special interests it currently serves. Therefore, the question the American people should be asking is: what is the federal government legally permitted to do.

The answer to this question is found within the U.S. Constitution. The fact that the federal government was created when the U. S. Constitution was ratified by the states is no coincidence. The people, who coincidently reside in the several states and not within the federal government, knew that there are certain functions only a central government can perform. This was the reasoning behind the Founding Fathers’ actions when they realized the Articles of Confederation were inadequate to meet the demands of a republican government. Therefore, we need only look to that incredible document for guidance in determining what the federal government can and cannot legally do. This is why I included the U. S. Constitution as an appendix to this book and why I swore an oath to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

What is ironic is that the unconstitutional (illegal) exercise of authority by the federal government occurred because politicians believed that they were doing the right thing. Doing the right thing motivated many socialists in the past century just as doing the right thing motivated many fundamentalists in the past fifty years. Unfortunately, the history of the federal government over the past fifty years seems to indicate that if a problem falls outside the scope of the federal government’s specific authority, the problem only worsens. This very tendency to insert the federal government into all facets of society, including our private lives, is what socialism and fundamentalism is all about. And it will be this tendency to intrude into the lives of the governed that will place the American people in the same place their state governments currently occupy. A position that finds once sovereign and independent states prostrate before the tyrant that uses its federal dollars to mandate what the states must do in order to receive more federal dollars.

When I read Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto I could not help but be struck by the logic of his arguments. After all, one cannot refute that there were a few men making fortunes from the labor of the masses. Moreover, as technology advanced, the lives of ordinary people did not correspondingly improve. It seemed that no matter how much wealth was created, those with it have never been able to use it to end poverty. Nevertheless, by the time I read Herr Marx’s work, the passage of time had proven his ideas could not be successfully applied to the real world because humanity is too far down its evolutionary ladder for Communism to succeed. Besides, any movement that works to eliminate God form the human equation is doomed to failure.

It is a fact of modern life that government is no longer the only power center in America. The emergence of the non‑profit association and the increasing ability of the individual to address the problems confronting his or her community are proof of what men and women can due despite the lack of government support. And despite the obstacles placed before them by those that embrace government as the answer to our problems, these men and women are living examples of how society’s problems can be solved without government interference.[[28]] There is more innate, collective wisdom in private markets and in the individual pursuit of wealth than government agencies can ever hope to acquire through their supposedly well-intentioned programs to redistribute wealth to those less deserving. The efforts of men and women, like those mothers that declared war on drunk driving, are what changed the status quo on our roads thereby making America a better and safer place to live.

With that said, I put to the American people the following question: How do we approach the task of measuring the federal government's performance? There is only one way and that is to identify those areas over which the federal government has sole responsibility and make a realistic assessment of its performance. We must examine the areas of our national existence that the federal government was created to address and ask if the federal government is succeeding at its unique mission. Although this will be a difficult task, it is necessary if only because an inefficient, unmanageable government run by unaccountable bureaucrats cannot be allowed to destroy what our Founding Fathers created and so many have sacrificed to secure.

To this end, I have selected for analysis two specific areas of our national existence that fall under the U.S. Constitution’s twin obligations of the federal government: to provide for the common defense and secure the general welfare. Since these two areas are becoming more and more inter-related, it is only logical that they be examined together. I have also included a third area of our national existence to be examined: space exploration. Space exploration combines aspects common to both general welfare and common defense. It also provides a glimpse into how the federal government operates. Like America’s children, space exploration always takes a backseat when federal dollars are tight. And like our children, NASA is placed at the bottom of our nation’s priorities.

General Welfare

The history of the United States is a history of immigration and migration. The immigration to which I refer is that of the peoples of the world coming to America. Past immigration included both voluntary and involuntary immigration. Slavery and the racial prejudices that still linger from that “peculiar” institution are alive and well in America. I know that scars remain, but we will only be able to address racial discrimination when our nation is once again the last and best hope of mankind. Today, it is a broken and bankrupt nation managed by men and women only interested in filling their pockets with gold.

With respect to migration in America, our history is replete with examples of internal migration. The best example of this is the Native American journey into near oblivion. Uprooted by railroads, highways and the advance of technology, the Native American people have been treated like slaves. And of all the crimes that the American people are guilty of committing only one can match in horror the premeditated murder of the men, women and children and that is the enslavement of Africans for profit. It never ceases to amaze me how many Americans discount these terrible crimes when speaking of how great America is. America was once a great nation to be sure, but it was only a great in the sense that it had unlimited resources and a powerful military machine. There is simply too much pain and suffering in America’s past for historians to brush aside as inconsequential the near genocide of an indigenous people and the enslavement of another. However, the sacrifices made during the Civil War and the civil rights movement proves that Americans can lift their nation above its shortcomings. I pray the American people are ready to once again sacrifice all for the greater good.

The first modern immigrants to America were Caucasian.[[29]] This set the tone for immigration to America for over 150 years. It also explains why the majority of Americans today are Caucasian. However, this will not be the case in one hundred years. The simple fact that the Caucasians are a vast minority in the world is evidence enough that the above prediction will come true. Yet, when I hear Caucasians argue that we should close America's door to immigration, I am angered because these new immigrants are key to our economic survival. They will help rebuild our decayed cities. They will help maintain America’s technological revolution. These new immigrants that will help the United States maintain its prosperity in the new millennium.

One of the primary reasons the federal government has failed in this area is that its immigration policy is incoherent. In fact, I assert that the federal government has no national immigration policy save that of allowing as many illegal immigrants to enter as possible. Despite the fact that America has room for only a limited number of new citizens each year, that reality is discarded every day our borders remain unsecured. Therefore, the federal government must adopt a new, more coherent policy that will benefit the nation as a whole. A more intelligent policy would entail admitting immigrants based on the skills and abilities they possess. Since America is in desperate need of skilled workers, it is only logical our national immigration policy should reflect such a reality. The resulting benefits from this change in policy will be immeasurable. A modern national immigration policy will allow America to reach its full potential.

Since the federal government is expressly authorized by the U.S. Constitution to regulate immigration, it must be the only government entity regulating immigration. Immigration is a perfect example of an area of our national existence that transcends the individual state. Nevertheless, the reasons our existing policy ignores this reality is that special interests and the politicians who take their money use immigration to serve their own political agendas. Why else would President Clinton pardon terrorists that not only advocate the use of violence against the United States but also practice it? Why else would our elected officials continue to leave America’s borders unsecured? Illegal immigration benefits both political parties and I defy anyone to prove me wrong.

The federal agency tasked with regulating immigration is the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The INS is responsible for processing legal immigrants into the United States. Illegal immigration was recognized as a law enforcement matter. The fact that INS has enough to do handling legal immigration is proof positive that it cannot address the problem of illegal immigration. Besides, illegal immigration is as much a national security problem as it is an issue affecting our national welfare

The United States Custom Service (Customs) is currently responsible for securing our borders from those wishing to enter illegally. The primary responsibility of Customs is to make sure those wishing to sell their goods in the United States pay the requisite taxes and fees. Instead of focusing on their stated missions, we find the INS and Customs combating illegal immigration at the expense of performing their primary functions. Just as our federal judges have been forced to abandon their primary function to become drug judges, INS and Customs have been forced to abandon their primary mission to become law enforcement agents. This inefficient response to a national problem is a perfect illustration of how a bloated and inefficient central government can lose sight of its stated mission.

This failure to achieve the mission of securing our borders is not the fault of the INS or Customs personnel in the field. These people are, by and large, honest, hard-working Americans trying to make a living. The problem is that far too many of these men and women sit in Washington D.C. counting their vacation days while the personnel in the field lack the resources to get the job done. These highly priced bureaucrats and the career politicians they serve have long ago destroyed the ability of the federal government to get the job done.

The United States Commission on Immigration Reform (Commission) issued a report recommending a solution to illegal immigration. The report recommended that a new federal agency be created within the Department of Justice to address illegal immigration. This new agency would be tasked with handling all law enforcement issues pertaining to illegal immigration. Like the bureaucrats they are, the Commission's answer to the problem of illegal immigration was to create a new layer of federal bureaucracy. However, their recommended solution, i.e. more government, proved too difficult to implement during a time when the American people were demanding less government.

The next best solution proffered by the venerable Commission is another time-tested option so often utilized by the federal government: pay a consultant to further review the problem. To this end, the Attorney General and the Director of the INS hired two contractors, Booze Hamilton to investigate the Commission’s findings and Price Waterhouse to develop a strategy for fixing the problem. I cannot wait for the Department of Justice to hire a third contractor to investigate the investigators after the public demands accountability for the taxpayer dollars spent in such a futile effort as to explain the obvious: INS and Customs cannot stop illegal immigration despite its absolute monopoly in this area, the inadequacies of the INS are painfully obvious. And for those still unconvinced of the federal government’s failure, in 1998, the Commission concluded that no single agency within the federal government could simultaneously perform the tasks of service provider (immigration application/ visa processing) and law enforcement (preventing illegal immigration).

What then is the solution that will secure our borders and promote national security? The solution is the U.S. Army. Instead of patrolling streets all over the world, we can bring these men and women home to defend our nation from an enemy attack that is sure to come. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army is stretched far too thin to undertake such a mission. Even if career politicians agreed to allow the U.S. Army to deploy along our borders, the special interests that manipulate the federal government would put a stop to it. We must never forget that illegal immigration fills the pockets of those in Washington D.C. and no amount of spin will change that fact.

Common Defense

I believe my experiences working within the Department of Defense qualify me to discuss intelligently the issues surrounding this most important of federal organizations. Over the last ten years,[[30]] I have witnessed the systematic destruction of our Armed Forces by the very same politicians who promote national defense come election time. This destruction did not occur overnight. Rather, it has been insidious, slowly and surely eroding our national security. It can be seen in the number of training accidents. It can be seen in the number of junior officers leaving the Army since the end of the Gulf War. And it can be seen in the pathetic salaries paid to young men and women who risk their lives so the children of the ruling class can spend their summer vacations in Europe. With that said, I offer my thoughts on how best to reform the Department of Defense.

The notion that our national security rests solely upon our physical ability to repel a foreign invader is as ridiculous as it is outdated. The physical invasion of the United States is a very remote possibility. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution makes the success of any such invasion highly unlikely. Our enemies know this well. However, they also know that they do not have to invade the United States to cause us great hardship. In today’s shrinking global community, national security rests in the stability of our markets, the safety of our trading partners, freedom on the high seas, freedom in the air, freedom above the earth and, more so than ever before, the freedom of Americans to travel abroad in peace.

National security is not just about fighting wars. It is about the dividends that peace brings. Yet, we must always be prepared to fight if aggression rears its ugly head. For this reason alone, we should have prevented the emasculation of our Armed Forces during the 1990s.

What I saw while living and working in the National Capitol area convinced me that our politicians do not sacrifice anything unless the sacrifice will aid them come Election Day. If you doubt this assertion, just look at 1) the benefits bestowed upon these servants of the people, 2) the actual number of hours they work each year, 3) the paucity of our currently serving Senators and Representatives that actually performed military service and 4) their reliance on polls for guidance rather than subject matter experts. I believe that if an enemy of even moderate strength confronted our Armed Forces today, we would have a difficult time defeating that aggressor. This is to say nothing of our ability to simultaneously maintain our “peacekeeping” missions while responding to such aggression.

The American people must understand that not all the world’s aggressors are as weak as Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. If, for example, North Korea invaded South Korea or China invaded Taiwan, there would be little America could do to stop such aggression short of nuclear war. And despite the fact that career politicians continue to tell us the world is a safer place since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is not. The world is a more dangerous place because the Soviet Union acted as a counter-balance to the United States; a counter-balance that presented many nations with the choice between aligning with one superpower or the other. Since the Soviet Union offered repression and corruption, most nations opted to ally with the United States. This is no longer the case. Today, many nations around the world are beginning to believe the United States is a superpower bent on profiting from its position. Consequently, these nations are beginning to feel that America is taking advantage of her enormous wealth. Many nations are beginning to think of Americans as greedy and self-absorbed. In many instances, they are correct. The result of this shifting of attitudes will be that foreign politicians will take advantage of this sentiment and use it to their advantage. We see it happening all around us.

Foreign politicians will preach to the poor and uneducated that because the United States is so wealthy that there must be some truth to the assertion that America is only interested in money. They will blame the United States for their problems regardless of whether or not we are responsible for them. In turn, the people will begin to feel that the United States is the enemy. They begin to see the wealth of Americans in an entirely new light – a light being made brighter by the actions of our federal government. We must never forget that nothing breeds hatred like jealousy.

It is a fact that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction continues at an alarming rate despite what our coat and tie politicians tell us to the contrary. They cannot tell the American people the truth; if they did, they would not be able to spend the budget surplus on pork barrel projects for their constituents. Instead, they would have to spend the surplus preparing against the attack that is sure to come. If the American people knew how dangerous the world really was and how unprepared we are to meet this danger, they would demand a stronger national defense. Instead, our coat and tie politicians pretend no such threat exists.

Most Americans have never heard the term Asymmetric Warfare. Although it is a term that preoccupies the daily lives of many Department of Defense officials, both in and out of uniform, I believe it is a term relatively unknown to the American people. The time has come for everyone to learn about the style of warfare that will dominate the 21^st century.

What is Asymmetric warfare? According to the Department of Defense’s Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the Armed Forces of the United States:

Asymmetric warfare engagements are battles between dissimilar forces. These engagements can be extremely lethal, especially if the force being attacked is not yet ready to defend itself against the threat. Similarly, asymmetric warfare has been described as war between two sides with very dissimilar goals, which makes the fight inherently asymmetrical from the start. The term "non‑traditional" is also used to define asymmetric warfare because it employs methods that do not fit how we traditionally picture warfare‑ big armies deployed against each other on the battlefield, using like strategy, tactics, and weapons.

Asymmetric warfare has also been described as warfare by an inferior force using new technology to defeat a superior enemy. For example, early in the campaigning season, Hannibal crossed the Alps with the aid of elephants in order to gain the advantage of surprise over the numerically superior Roman Legions. The North Vietnamese undermined the United States’ enormous military advantage by recognizing what it would take to win a guerrilla war against the United States: unbridled savagery.

Asymmetric warfare in the 21^st century will find nations, like Iraq and North Korea, using chemical and/or biological weapons against superior enemies like the United States. Iraq will not have to face America on the battlefield. Its goal in war is not the same as ours. Iraq knows it cannot defeat the United States in the field. Instead, it will hide behind anonymity and launch its attack from the cargo hold of a sea-going vessel or on board a transcontinental airliner. Do not let the politicians fool you. There is no security.

The Panama Canal provides one example of where asymmetric warfare could involve the United States. What would happen if China were able to close the Panama Canal to the United States and her allies? What does China have to do with the Panama Canal? The answer is everything. In 1997, Panama granted to a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. (a Chinese corporation) a twenty-five year lease concession to operate the Panama Canal entry points. Although the United States submitted a higher bid to operate these entry points, the bid was rejected. Why was the higher bid rejected? Could it be that the Chinese officials bribed the Panamanian officials who awarded the concession? If this was not enough, Hutchison Whampoa also secured an option to lease our former naval base in Panama. As such, Hutchison Whampoa could lease the naval base to North Korea or some other nation that despises America. The consequences of such an action should be obvious.

Although the legacy of President Carter will always be the dismantling of America’s human intelligence network worldwide in favor of new high tech forms of intelligence gathering, there is another of his legacies that must never be forgotten. When President Carter signed a treaty that required the United States to hand over the Panama Canal on December 31, 1999, he jeopardized our national security. The Panama Canal is a vital part of our national defense and there is no refuting this statement. Nevertheless, President Clinton does not believe that our losing control of the Panama Canal poses any threat to our national security. President Clinton wants to believe that Chinese control of the Panama Canal poses no threat to our national security because Panama has guaranteed that it (Panama) will never allow the Canal to be operated in other than a neutral manner. First, I do not regard the “guarantees” of Panama as having any weight in the calculation of what is or is not in the best interests of our national security. Second, Panama has not proven itself a nation strong enough, politically or economically, to withstand the pressures a country as powerful as China can assert. Should China, through its manipulation of Hutchison Whampoa, close the Panama Canal to America and her allies, the results would be disastrous. The United States would have no choice but to answer with force. In so doing, China would create untold political havoc in the United States, not to mention the loss of American lives in the ensuing military action. China will be able to do this without ever having to face America on the battlefield. In short, China will have engaged in asymmetric warfare.

Yet these considerations do not shed light on the true essence of President Clinton’s legacy. His legacy is found in the other “reason” why he considers Chinese control of the Panama Canal not a threat to our national security. President Clinton reasoned that Chinese control did not jeopardize our national security interests because “we” could retake the Panama Canal anytime “we” wanted. Retake the Panama Canal? Mr. President, are you referring to the deployment of American men and women to the jungles of Panama to retake it by force of arms? How easy will it be to retake the Panama Canal once the Chinese have built the Panamanian Defense Forces to where it is the most powerful army in Latin America? How easy will it be for America to stop the Chinese from severely damaging, if not destroying, the Panama Canal before we could retake it? Most importantly, how many of our boys and girls will die retaking the Panama Canal? President Clinton has never shied away from risking the lives of American men and women in the service of his policies. The only thing he ever shied away from was risking his life for his policies. History may remember him as a liar, but to many Americans, he will always be remembered as a coward.

It is beyond the scope of this book to address every potential scenario in which asymmetric warfare could exist. It is also beyond the scope of this book to undertake a thorough and proper analysis of the emasculation of the Department of Defense since the end of the Cold War. I fear historians will write how unprepared America was for the next great war and how it cost the lives of so many young men and women. What is not beyond the scope of this book is to point out how the federal government has failed and is failing to provide for our common defense. If the American people believe our Armed Forces will have the ability to defend this nation’s interests with fewer allocated resources, they are mistaken. We must reform the Department of Defense so that it is an effective fighting force. This reformation will only occur if we change the way in which Washington D.C. conducts business. We must do what is best for all Americans and not just what is best for a few Americans.

It is true that the Department of Defense is currently undergoing a massive reorganization; reorganization dictated by the ever-increasing challenges of the 21^st century battlefield and the ever-decreasing funds and manpower available to meet those challenges. I know the Department of Defense is attempting to establish fighting forces that will meet the demands of the 21^st century. I also know the Department of Defense is attempting to incorporate those practices of the business world that have enabled the private sector to prosper in the age of technology. However, I also know the politicians in Washington D.C. are playing games with this attempt to restructure. The games are subtle but the results will be devastating.

I cannot write dispassionately about two things: the Department of Defense and the American criminal justice system. What is ironic is that without reformation of these two areas of our national existence, the end of America as a superpower is almost assured. And we must never forget that government reformation and child welfare are two sides of the same coin. With that said, I offer three areas of our national defense that must be reformed if America is to maintain her status as the most powerful nation on earth:

1. The manpower levels of our Armed Forces

2. The complete reformation of our intelligence gathering capabilities

3. The concentration of the Department of Defense’s Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation (RDT&E) infrastructure in the American southwest.

In 1997, the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) was immediately praised as the framework under which the Department of Defense would be able to reshape itself to meet our future national security needs. The faceless, nameless bureaucrats applauded its vision. It was then I knew something was wrong. Career politicians do not applaud change, they shrink from it. So why then did they applaud the QDR?

Much of the QDR was straightforward in its approach. However, I disagreed with its conclusion regarding the manpower levels required to meet the stated national security goals. I do not need to write countless pages addressing this shortcoming because the issue is now moot. The fact that our Armed Forces cannot even recruit enough young men and women to replace those that are leaving is why the issue is now moot. We cannot even meet the manpower limitations envisioned by the QDR. Therefore, the question of whether or not these manpower levels are realistic or adequate will never be known. Short of a miraculous reform in the pay levels of military and civilian personnel, such manpower will never be recruited to fill these recommended levels unless the draft is re-instituted. Unfortunately, this is exactly what may happen if America hopes to field at least some semblance of a fighting force. However, you will never hear our coat and tie politicians tell the American people this although they know or should know it is a distinct possibility. As if this lack of quantity were not enough, the qualifications of some entering the Armed Forces is at an all-time low. Evidence of this may be found in our politicians’ desire to lower existing standards for admission. Our politicians want to lower the standards at a time when the weapons our Armed Forces use are becoming more complicated. High tech weaponry has a tendency to be difficult to operate if the user does not know how to read.

Today, our defense budget is approximately three percent of the U.S. Gross National Product. This is the lowest percentage in decades. Yet, the liberal establishment and many conservatives would have the American people believe we are spending too much money on defense. These knee-jerk liberals and phony conservatives argue that because Russia is no longer a superpower, we should reduce defense spending. It is time they realize the world is a more dangerous place exactly because Russia cannot feed its people. It is time our politicians realize that the world is a more dangerous place when Russia cannot pay her Soldiers. Victory on the battlefield in the 21^st century will go to the nation with the most advanced weapon systems and the best-trained and most highly educated Soldiers. Therefore, it is imperative that the United States not only have the best trained Army, Navy and Air Force, but also that the weapons given these warriors must not be the poorly maintained weapons used in the Gulf War.

The history of the American Army and Navy reveals that before the start of the two World Wars and the Korean War,[[33]] our Armed Forces were wholly unprepared for combat. They were unprepared because the weapons provided them were either obsolete, as was the case with the rifles used in the early stages of World War II and, in the case of the Korean War, the Soldiers sent into combat were poorly trained. Our political leaders, seemingly ignorant of history altogether, refuse to learn from the lessons of the past. It will not be until our young men and women begin returning home in body bags that these coat and tie politicians will take our nation’s defense more seriously.

The second area of our national defense that must be reformed is that involving our intelligence gathering capabilities. The National Security Agency (NSA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are the three primary organizations responsible for gathering intelligence about America’s enemies - real or potential[[34]]. However, in the past ten years, the age of technology has left the code breakers deaf. In short, the code makers have surpassed the code breakers. Fiber optics and encryption codes have transformed the intelligence gathering community in a mere ten years. This is another example of how the “peace dividend” has worked to dismantle our nation’s defense.

In the early days of the Cold War, the interests of national security were paramount to any interest desiring a smaller and more efficient central government. A perfect example is the creation of the National Security Agency. Back then, the NSA worked jointly with the private sector to create state-of-the-art intelligence gathering techniques that kept us one step ahead of our enemies. These partnerships produced microcomputers and the high-speed circuitry that helped propel the high technology revolution. America was the world leader in these areas and her intelligence gathering capabilities reflected as much. Those days are also gone. We must bring Silicon Valley and Fort Meade (home to NSA) together. The infrastructure to accomplish this task is being developed in the high tech corridors of Northern Virginia and Maryland. The federal government must begin a new joint effort with the private sector in order to tap its intellectual power.

Also related to this area of national security is the lack of capable engineers within the federal workforce. The serious deficiency in quality engineers within the federal government is rarely discussed. Although I would love to provide examples of the effects poor engineering has on military operations, this is best left for another time. What I want to convey is that the federal government’s lack of support to accomplish its mission must be addressed. The fact that the federal government cannot recruit and retain young engineers, computer scientists and information systems specialists is all too real. I believe the time has come to replace the thousands and thousands of lawyers “working” for the federal government with engineers that are actually working for the federal government. The time has come to root out the useless lawyers that feed from the federal trough. The result will be a leaner and more efficient federal government. Imagine that!

It is no surprise that our intelligence capabilities have suffered since 1989. The United States signals intelligence communities are like our uniform services - a shell of their former selves. Today, the capabilities of our Armed Forces pale in comparison to days past. The same goes for our intelligence gathering capabilities. I wish I could direct you to someone who could verify the accuracy of my assertions, but anyone who would publicly verify my assertions would be unemployed tomorrow. This is how the bureaucrats, even in the Pentagon, preserve the status quo. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that our intelligence collection systems are failing and failing miserably. How else can the NSA explain the fact that Pakistan’s detonation of a nuclear weapon caught the United States off guard?

Finally, any effective, meaningful reformation of the Department of Defense must involve a revamping of our defense infrastructure. The American people need to be made aware of the growing support within the defense community (uniform and civilian) to reform our defense infrastructure in order to make it cost effective and mission responsive. This reformation would require the establishment of a Southwest Defense Complex that can handle most of, if not all, the Department of Defense’s RDT&E operations. In an order to ensure the success of such an effort, it is imperative that the federal government views its installations from the viewpoint of a complex and not as individual bases operating in a vacuum.

The unpopulated areas of the American southwest, along with its favorable climate for RDT&E, offer an environment most conducive to testing and evaluation of new and revised weapons systems. However, the politicians of the “eastern establishment” have fought, and will fight, to thwart such a reformation of the research, development, testing and evaluation of our nation’s weapons systems even though it would better serve our national security interests. The enormous sums of taxpayer money to be saved is only incidental, at least in my opinion, to mission efficiency. Moreover, I believe the money saved from such a concentration of resources would cover the cost of reforming our signals intelligence capabilities.

I was not aware of the need for, or the issues surrounding, the consolidation of our RDT&E operations until I read that General Colin Powell supported linking test and evaluation capabilities to the training ranges in the southwest United States. In addition, when I read that the Chief of Staff of the United States Army testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that such a linking of Department of Defense related training in the southwest would create less redundancy as well as boost joint training objectives, I realized that maybe these men knew what they were talking about.

A perfect example of the political machinations negating Department of Defense reform efforts, especially the need to consolidate Department of Defense assets in the southwest, is the M-1 tank. The M-1 is the main battle tank of the United States Army. The Army’s National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, California serves as the home to the Army’s most important training and testing center for armored and mechanized warfare. Since Fort Irwin is one of the few installations (USMC Base Twenty Nine Palms in California being another) where realistic armored and mechanized training can occur, it is only logical that Fort Irwin sits as a highly favorable locale for testing the M-1 and training personnel in its operation.

The M-1 is also an important weapon to the United States Marine Corps. The United States Marine Corps operates an Echelon 5 maintenance facility[[35]] at the Marine Corps Logistics Base at Barstow, California, some thirty miles from Fort Irwin. Yet, when the Army and the Marine Corps need an M-1 repaired or rebuilt, the tank is often shipped by rail two thousand miles simply so bases back east can argue they perform a mission essential to our national defense. This is both a waste of taxpayer dollars and a hindrance to the mission. A tank back east cannot be used to train a Soldier or Marine out west.

Ironically, the current initiative to concentrate RDT&E resources in the southwest resulted from Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission[[36]] decisions on California. Rather than spend countless pages discussing how California was impacted, it suffices to say that California paid a price disproportionate to the price her “eastern brothers” paid. The easterner’s BRAC victory was due in no small part to the fact that California has, in my opinion, two Senators who have demonstrated nothing short of contempt for our nation’s defense. California also has eleven federal legislators that have been in Congress for over twenty years. Notwithstanding 11 career politicians with over twenty years at the federal trough, it appears as if the political savvy of the eastern establishment is much more developed than that of their western counterparts. How else can these California politicians explain the damage they allowed the BRAC Commission to inflict upon California? Unfortunate as it may be for Californians, the closer you are to Washington D.C., the more political weight you carry. The time has come to place our nation’s defense above petty political struggles.

The savings in the RDT&E community alone supports such an effort to relocate these assets. Three other compelling reasons lend support for the southwest relocation initiative: 1) America’s fastest growing cities are in the southwest, 2) such a relocation would ease the urban sprawl in the east, which has so devastated the environment in that part of the country and 3) the relocation would improve the joint readiness of our Armed Forces.

The relocation of our defense infrastructure to the southwest would help support the cities of the southwest. In turn, as these great cities of the future develop, the high tech specialists currently building these cities could next turn their energies to the establishment of a southwest defense complex. Just as important, this relocation would take pressure off the environment in the already overcrowded eastern United States. As urban sprawl continues to erode the green areas of the east, the relocation of these defense assets to the southwest would ease the environmental burden.

I have purposefully decided not to exhaust the reasons why our defense infrastructure should be relocated to the southwest. There are other more compelling reasons, however they do not compare with the three cited above. Therefore, I will leave further debate to the men and women that make this reformation of the federal government their business. I urge them not to give up the cause. When the American people realize the economic benefits and the positive impact on our defensive capabilities, they will agree with these conclusions.

I feel it imperative that I conclude this section by reminding the American people that their booming economy is made possible by the stability of the economies comprising the global market. The Department of Defense makes the stability of these economies possible. If you doubt this assertion, just ask yourself how long it would take Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait and/or Saudi Arabia, or the North Koreans to invade South Korea, if their leaders believed that the United States was unprepared or unwilling to meet their aggression. Forget for the moment the rogue nations mentioned above. Instead, let us focus on three very powerful nations that, if united, could cause untold harm to the American economy and the American people. These nations are Russia, China and India - three nations that are very dissatisfied with the actions of the United States over the past two decades.

I have always believed China and Russia will one day join forces to check American global dominance. However, I never envisioned India as part of that equation. I did not think such an eventuality was possible until September 1999 when the then Russian Prime Minister, Yevgeny M. Primakov, suggested that India join with Russia and China in forming a “triangle” in which they together could assure peace in the region.[[37]] The reasons why such a pact could materialize are complex to be sure. The issues that could drive these nations together range from India’s fear of a nuclear and militant Pakistan (supported by China) to Russia’s disgust over the United States’ contempt for her interests, as displayed by President Clinton’s complete disregard for Russia’s preeminence in the Balkans. If President Clinton wants to look for blame for the massacre of Chechnya and its people, he need only look in the mirror. His decision to support one insurgency over another caused Russian leaders to loose face before the Russian people.[[38]] To counter that loss of face, the Russian government acted decisively in the face of Chechnya’s opposition.

If Russia or China are able to convince India to join in a mutual assistance defense treaty, the United States and its allies will be faced with a foe much more dangerous than the Soviet Union. If such an alliance should occur, I would urge the Taiwanese to prepare for war and the Western world to prepare for economic difficulties far worse than the Asian crisis of a few years ago. With that said, I leave the reader with these questions: What will happen to American prosperity when India and/or China compete with Silicon Valley for technical supremacy? And what will happen when they use their technology to assist a resurgent and constantly slighted Russia in her times of trouble?

History teaches us that it was Rome’s internal decay that allowed the barbarians to sack her empire. The question that every American must ask is whether history will record that it was America’s internal decay that allowed her enemies to prevail. The abandonment of our national defense in pursuit of the ever-elusive peace dividend is just one example of this internal decay. The abdication of personal responsibility in favor of the ever-more politically correct notion that individual liberty is more important provides yet another telling example of Americana in decay. If you doubt these assertions, I invite you to read the history of 20^th century America, a history replete with examples of military tragedies and bureaucratic failures. It must stop now.

Space Exploration

I believe any discussion about the reformation of the federal government must include an examination of the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA). I believe this because NASA provides the American people with an excellent example of how an unmanageable bureaucracy can cost the American taxpayer billions of dollars.

We cannot continue to treat NASA and space exploration as if it were a second rate federal agency. It is sad that the federal government relegates NASA to the same level of funding as the Office of Personnel Management. Maintaining NASA in its current under-funded state is to fail to understand the true value of space exploration. The United States has the opportunity to be the first nation to harness and exploit the resources of space - resources we cannot begin to imagine. The time has come for NASA to take its place among the forefront of federal endeavors. More precisely, NASA must be a mission requiring cabinet level status. If NASA is to lead the way in the exploration of space, it must do so with the full support of the federal government.

The federal government’s role in space exploration provides a perfect example of the need for an efficient federal service. It also provides another example of federal failure. What is ironic is that by examining NASA, the reader is provided with a glimpse of how poorly the federal government operates and/or is managed. We need only examine current events in NASA to understand how poorly the federal government performs its missions. However, there are a few additional facts that must be addressed before the importance of NASA can be understood.

The human population of Earth is estimated to be six billion. These six billion are beginning to adversely affect the ability of our planet to heal itself. In the past, human actions have resulted in only minimal damage to the planet’s ability to heal itself. This is no longer the case. The age of technology is accelerating the pace at which we damage our common environment. Moreover, the ways in which we damage our common environment are far more lethal than in years past. Moreover, the chemical and biological emissions entering our environment today are far more deadly than those of yesterday. Even more problematic is the fact that the human population of this planet is distributed unevenly. The areas of the planet that are mild in temperature and fertile in soil are where the overwhelming majority of these six billion reside. In fact, the entire human population lives in roughly six to seven percent of the earth’s surface. It is this very fact that may prove a disaster in the coming decades.

The United Nations and many international health organizations estimate that the population of our planet will reach approximately nine billion by the year 2050. As much as I want to believe that our planet can support such a burden, I fear it is a burden that will destroy our planet’s ability to heal itself. Emerging nations continue to cry for more and more natural resources. Developing nations continue to produce toxic emissions that destroy our environment. The industrial revolution of the third world is causing such havoc on our common environment that I doubt if our planet can survive such an onslaught. Therefore, we, the enabled, must lead the effort to establish a two-pronged attack designed to save this planet - a plan that addresses issues both sustainable growth and space exploration.

Thankfully, there are many experts working on solutions to sustainable growth every day. Their thoughts and ideas on sustainable growth will provide the substance for debate at the Second Constitutional Convention. It is because we, the enabled, are blessed with good fortune that we must lead the way. I can only offer my opinion as to how a species, working together, should approach this final frontier. The world’s wealthy nations and their citizens must join together to establish, through obligated funds, an independent, international organization privately operated and dedicated to the establishment of a permanent space station. I do not envision a joint effort like the one currently in existence today, but an independent entity above politics - an entity that places research, education and exploration above the fray of politics.[[39]]

Before you laugh off the possibility of a non-governmental space station occurring in our lifetime, think for a moment about the Berlin Wall and how permanent it seemed in 1986. Why 1986? In 1986, my wife and I honeymooned in West Germany where we spent an evening enjoying the German custom known as Stammtisch. At a table that seated about 10 people, a man, whose father was a U.S. soldier from New Jersey, was celebrating Christmas Eve dinner at a traditional Bavarian restaurant with his wife and three friends. As we sat at the only seats open, we were welcomed by him. After ordering our food, we soon joined the conversation. The seven of us discussed America, Russia and Germany. It was during the discussion on Russia that I predicted the Berlin Wall would be down before the end of the century. Everyone laughed at the suggestion that the East German communists would allow such a thing to happen. And just as it seemed incredible in 1986 that East Germany would soon be free from Russian control, it too seems incredible that education and exploration will be the driving force behind the establishment of a private space station. It can happen if the wealthy of the world join together to make it so.

Notwithstanding the above referenced difficulties, building a space station and the exploration of deep space are the second steps toward the establishment of a self-supporting human presence in space. The first step is one that must be taken here on earth. This step requires our species to adjust its moral compass so that weapons of mass destruction are not the cornerstones of national security. Hatred, jealousy and greed must be overcome here on earth before our species will be allowed to populate the galaxy. And despite the fact that humanity’s journey to the stars may not occur in my lifetime, I believe such a journey is not beyond the lives of our children. With that said, let us begin the long process of establishing a human presence in space by reforming our government’s vision of space and our vision of government. The first step in this area of governmental reformation will find us reconstituting NASA - a reconstitution that includes bringing NASA to the forefront of the federal government’s mission.

The problems that have plagued NASA over the last ten years are similar to those that have plagued the Department of Defense. NASA has been so poorly funded that today it too is a shadow of its former self. Notwithstanding this depressing fact, JFK’s dream is alive and well. The United States rocket program is just one example of this dream. Places like Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Cape Canaveral in Florida are just two examples of how space exploration can benefit this nation’s economy. By elevating the importance of NASA, America can take the next step in her journey to the stars.

Space exploration presents humanity not just with the final frontier of exploration. It provides humanity with the chance to find the answers to so many of life’s questions. It is within the vastness of the universe that humanity will find the answers it seeks. For this reason, we must discard the argument that to spend money on space exploration is misguided when there exists on earth so many pressing problems. The answers to many of the most pressing problems on earth have already been identified. We have only to look at ourselves to know that we are the answer to the problems plaguing this lonely planet.

The new Department of Space Exploration should be linked closely to the Departments of Energy, Defense and Transportation. This new Department will pick up where President Kennedy’s dream left off. It will bring to America the benefits that space has to offer - from improved air travel to national security. Currently, the United States Air Force has cognizance over our Unified Space Command. However, in its fiscal year 2000 appropriations, Congress created the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization (Space Management). Space Management, from what I have been able to ascertain, is tasked with assessing:

1. Whether an independent armed service should be created along side the Army, Navy and Air Force with the mission of exploring space

2. How well current inter-agency coordination exists with respect to issues involving space

3. How best to use existing assets to support America’s national security

4. Whether an Assistant Secretary of Defense position should be created to address the issues surrounding space and national security

These are important issues to be sure. However, there are other issues of equal or greater importance involving the commercial use of space and how America may best profit from this use. Yes, I do mean profit. Just like the Portuguese who profited from their mastery of the sea, so too should America gain power and wealth through its mastery of space.

I believe it is at this point in the discussion that the reader must understand the distinction between “white” versus “black” space. White space is that use of space that does not relate to the intelligence gathering aspects of national security. Black space is that use of space that does involve our nation’s intelligence gathering capabilities. In other words, space is another field upon which our national security is tested. For this reason alone, we must stop relegating NASA to its current underfunded, understaffed, and underappreciated status. The status quo must end at NASA. It is a matter of life and death. Therefore, I offer as the starting point of reformation at NASA the job of improving the efficiency of the federal government in its use of both “white” and “black” space. Once these programs are funded in accordance with their importance and the “right” personnel are hired to do the job, the differences between “white” space and “black” space will be less pronounced and our ability to master space improved.

A perfect example of the relationship between the two and the potential for commercial use is the GPS tracking system currently used by millions of Americans in many facets of their lives. Twenty years ago, people laughed at the money spent by the federal government to develop this satellite guidance system. No one is laughing today. A few examples of the future use of advancements in space technology will be space-based travel (Tokyo to London in three hours) and the development of space-based radar systems that will revolutionize many different industries, including aviation. In an effort to address national security concerns, this new Department must contain a special section that works closely with the United States Air Force. For this reason, I do not believe America needs another armed service. It is only logical that the United States Air Force be the armed service responsible for securing the heavens. It was the United States Air Force that put us there in the first place.

The eternal legacy of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) will always be his vision of space exploration. JFK voiced the hope of millions of people when he spoke of man landing on the moon and returning safely. In one hundred years, I pray that children will hear his words and marvel at the man who made possible their anticipated journey to the stars. I also pray that these same children will also read how a nation-state called America provided the impetus for the movement that allowed men and women to live in space. However, if the federal government continues its path of debt and destruction, JFK’s dream will remain a dream. In that case, the only things to reach the stars will be government satellites placed in orbit to watch those that oppose the status quo – the same status quo that embraces national debt in the name of political expediency.

States’ Duties, Not States’ Rights

Beginning with the New Deal, the federal government has slowly but surely eroded the authority of the states. In so doing, it has become the principal governing body in our nation. This is not what the Founding Fathers intended.

By expanding into facets of our lives never intended for the federal government, it began replacing the states as the primary governing body in our national psyche. No longer are we a nation of separate and distinct states; each vested with a general police power. On the contrary, we have become a nation of one government manipulated by those with the wealth and power to do so.

The federal government, through the Federal Reserve System, the federal income tax and the supremacy of federal law, has tipped the balance of power in its favor. No longer are the states responsible for the health and safety of the people and the consequences have been devastating.

I assert that the true legacy of the New Deal is that government tried to cure the ills facing society, not that it has in fact done so. Unfortunately for the American people, the Second World War followed the New Deal thus adding to the myth that the federal government could cure the ills facing society. Politicians clung to the notion that since the federal government won the war, there was nothing it could not do. Wrong! The federal government did not win the Second World War. It was won by the combined courage of the men and women that defeated Germany and Japan. Moreover, the Second World War ended the depression, not the New Deal, as many would have us believe. The truth is that much of the New Deal was unconstitutional. When the U.S. Supreme Court realized that President Roosevelt’s policies and programs for the economy were outside the expressed authority granted the federal government under the U.S. Constitution, they declared his programs an unlawful exercise of federal authority.

The erosion of state sovereignty by the federal government has occurred in primarily two ways. First, the federal government expanded its authority and jurisdiction by intruding into other areas of our national existence that are the responsibility of the states to regulate. Simply put, the federal government has involved itself in matters that do not transcend the state but are in fact matters that can only be resolved by the state. Two glaring examples of this intrusion can be found in the federal government’s disastrous involvement in education and its equally disastrous war on drugs. The second and most destructive way the federal government has eroded the authority of the states is through repressive taxation. As the federal government takes more and more of our income simply to help banks to big to fail by replacing their losses, it erodes the power of the citizens of each state, thereby eroding the power of the state. Could anyone really argue that the once great State of Michigan was more valuable to our nation than Wells Fargo, Citigroup or Bank of America? I think not.

By the time of the Great Society (1965), the federal government had replaced the states as the primary governing body in our nation of states. The only such entity that could, as the politicians claimed, solve the ills facing society. Today, we know the federal government has failed in curing these ills. After forty years of federal dominance, the time has come for the states to assume the duties and responsibilities the U.S. Constitution reserved to them. It is also time for the federal government to be returned to its proper place in our Union of separate and sovereign states.

There has been so much rhetoric of late proclaiming that the federal government has gotten smaller. I fear many Americans believe this to be true. It is not. While campaigning, politicians claim that the federal government has been reduced in size. They claim it is because of “their” policies that this has occurred. President Clinton and Vice President Gore are two such politicians. In his 1997 inaugural address, President Clinton again stated that the era of big government was over. I listened in amazement as our President lied just minutes after swearing a most sacred oath. And as I sat aboard the Metro on the way home from the inauguration, I wondered how it could be that a proud nation like America had re-elected William Jefferson Clinton. It was then that I realized we live in a society turned upside down; where lies are accepted as the truth unless you can prove in a court of law that they are lies.

In 1912, the number of civilian employees on the federal payroll stood at over 400,000.[[44]] By 1918, the federal government had more than doubled.[[45]] Of course, much of this growth may be accounted for by the catastrophe that was World War I. To the credit of a Republican Congress, the federal government was returned to approximately 500,000 employees at the conclusion of the hostilities in 1918. This return to reason lasted until President Roosevelt's New Deal. In 1932, the federal civilian payroll was 605,496. By 1940, the federal civilian payroll expanded to 1,042,420.[[46]] By the end of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the federal civilian workforce stood at over three million.[[47]] What caused the federal government to grow to three times its pre-World War II size? It was not the Second World War. The military was drawn down considerably after 1945. One needs only to remember how unprepared we were to fight the Korean War[[48]] to understand this.

There must be a reason for the unprecedented growth of the federal civil service and I believe this growth was due primarily to Congress' expansion of its powers beyond those specifically allocated to it by the U.S. Constitution. The implementation of the New Deal and its 1960s half-sister, the Great Society, marked the birth of a federal government with unlimited powers; no longer a means to an end, but rather an end in and of itself. In short, the federal government was becoming an employer whose sole function was to perpetuate its own existence. It had become a place for politicians and bureaucrats to build empires. The sheer size of today’s bloated federal government has rendered it beyond the control of the governed.

The fact that the federal government cannot (or will not) control itself is the very reason it takes so much of our hard-earned money; money spent to pay for failed social programs and useless federal bureaucrats. If you continue to doubt the veracity of this statement, I urge you to read Appendix C. You will see in black and white the monster the United States federal government has become.

I believe the most convincing evidence that the federal government has usurped the authority of the states can be found in the words of the father of the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Madison was very clear on the limited authority he intended for the federal government to possess. The fact that Mr. Madison learned firsthand how resistant to change central governments could be is why he and many of our Founding Fathers believed limiting the federal government’s authority was the first priority in creating a constitutional form of government. Mr. Madison could not have been clearer when he wrote in the Federalist Papers No. 45:

The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with the last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the States will extend to all the objects, which in the ordinary course of affairs concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

I realize the average American does not know why or understand how the federal government operates as it does. The average American’s inability to understand the workings of the federal government has enabled it to grow at our collective expense.[[49]] As a student of history, government and law, I am still confused as to why and under what authority the federal government does the things it does. However, if there is one lesson the federal government has taught me it is this: if you really want to understand how the federal government works, try to change it. Only then will you understand how powerful the faceless, nameless bureaucrats who manipulate it really are.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Constitutions are intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories." I believe this is exactly what the Founding Fathers feared would happen. They knew how easily the power of a central government could be abused as well as how resistant to change it could become once it usurped the authority of the states. I believe Oliver Wendell Holmes would second my assertion that the federal government continues to take our earnings in an attempt to maintain theories rather than preserve practical rights. As the federal government continues to accrue more and more debt to fund failing programs, they take from the next generation the right to the pursuit of happiness through the accumulation of property; a right so cherished by the people of revolutionary America that they risked everything they had, including their lives, to secure it.

There is a very real difference between what the federal government “should” do as opposed to what it is “permitted” to do under the law. The question of what the federal government should do is theoretical and therefore irrelevant in any discussion on the proper exercise of federal authority. What the federal government can do is a legal question that can only be answered with an understanding of the U.S. Constitution.

A critical analysis of what the federal government actually has done leaves little doubt that it has failed in almost every non-defense related endeavor it has undertaken. One shining exception to this general rule was the landing a man on the moon. To those who argue the civil rights laws enacted during the last half of the 20^th century represent at least one other federal success, I would remind the reader that the gap between the rich and poor continues to widen while America’s schools and neighborhoods are as segregated as they were in the first half of the 20^th century. Fortunately for us, we have the luxury of examining what the federal government claimed it would do as opposed to what it actually did do. This examination shows that the past sixty years have witnessed an expanding federal government and the inevitable intrusion into the lives of Americans and the sovereignty of the states.

A perfect example of this intrusion involves the expansion of federal authority into areas previously reserved for the states. When the federal government sends its agents to the field to solve some problem, the states are precluded from resolving the problem in their own way. They are precluded from because the federal agents either use their federal “dollars” as a carrot or federal “supremacy” as a stick. In this way, the federal government forces the federal legislator from that state to weigh-in on the side of the federal government. If the federal dollars are withheld, the federal legislator will pay the price come the next election. In short, the federal government holds the states hostage with our money; a process that began in the 1930s and continues unabated to this day.

The U.S. Constitution states quite clearly what the federal government may legally do. Since these are the only areas in which the federal government is permitted to act, they must be the only areas in which it is permitted to act. In order to appreciate the Founding Father’s fear of an all-powerful central government, the reader must understand the circumstances under which the federal government came into being. The reader must know why the Founding Fathers feared the creation of a powerful central or federal government. This analysis begins with an examination of the first Constitutional Convention that met at Philadelphia in 1787. As the reader comes to understand the nature of the debates that occurred during this critical point in our nation’s history, it will become abundantly clear why it was that the Founding Fathers limited the powers of the federal government to seventeen distinct and enumerated powers.

Miracle At Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May to September 1787[[50]] by Catherine Drinker Bowen is the seminal work on that fateful summer of 1787. The painstaking detail of her research is remarkable. Her grasp of the issues is right on point. Ms. Drinker Bowen not only provides the reader with an in-depth analysis as to why a central government is necessary for the prosperity of America, but she also addresses how the Founding Fathers intended to limit the power of this new form of government so that it would not usurp the authority of the states. Finally, Ms. Drinker Bowen’s description of the environment and times in which these men labored is nothing short of masterful.

The importance of the events transpiring at Independence Hall that summer must be understood in the context of the time and place that was Revolutionary America. Ms. Drinker Bowen artfully conveys the fear the Founding Fathers had about this new form of government they were creating. In fact, she explains that some delegates to the First Constitutional Convention even refused to sign the new Constitution because they felt that the safeguards contained within it were inadequate to restrain this new form of government. They believed that giving the federal government such awesome power would cause it to one day dominate the states. It appears as if their fears have been realized!

To the Founding Fathers, it was the union of separate and sovereign states that would make America unique among nations. By placing the police power of government in the states, the Founding Fathers believed government (and its officials) would be easier to control. The Founding Fathers wanted the states to retain their individual sovereignty just as if they were independent nations. They did not want the federal government to intrude on this sovereignty unless the intrusion involved a truly federal question or issue. It was the individuality of the states and the people living in them that would make America great. This philosophy is what made America great. Even in today’s shrinking world, the differences between the states are remarkable.

Miracle at Philadelphia made me realize that the United States is not the federal government, but the union of fifty individual, distinct states. Miracle at Philadelphia helped me understand that the larger the federal government becomes, the less our citizens are united. What I mean to say is that as the federal government usurps the authority of the states, the more distance it puts between the people and their states. Although this may seem contradictory, it is not. By expanding its role in our national existence, the federal government has forced the people to turn away from their states when searching for the answers to the problems. Instead, the people look to Washington D.C. for answers. Of course, the politicians in Washington D.C. promise answers; however, they do not deliver.

The result of this shifting of power has been the complete and utter contempt so many Americans have for government. The best examples of this distortion are problems relating to the health and safety of the people. The problems associated with crime and education are perfect examples of this phenomenon. The expansion of the federal government into education (by holding the states hostage with our tax dollars) has led the people to turn to the federal government for answers as to why public education has failed. As for crime, the more federal criminal statutes Congress enacts, the more the people turn to the federal government for answers. Criminal statutes dealing with drugs, violence against women and the myriad of federal gun control laws currently not enforced typify this failure. Such empty rhetoric allows career politicians to trumpet their activism to an apathetic constituency who just happens to have a memory with a half-life of one day.

The police power vested in each state stems from the broad legislative power to pass laws to promote the public health, safety and welfare. This is the general authority the Founding Fathers believed the states would need to protect their citizens from an oppressive federal government as well as the evil that men do. As such, the state does not have to rely upon the federal government for the authority to protect its citizens. Nor should it step aside every time the federal government decides it “knows” best. The federal government is not responsible for securing the health, safety and welfare of its citizens. That is the responsibility of the state. The federal government is responsible for fulfilling a very specific but limited role in our national existence; a role clearly laid out in the U.S. Constitution.

The power vested in Congress to legislate is derived from Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. It is here that the U.S. Constitution specifically limits the power of Congress to enact laws in any area, including criminal behavior. Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution reads as follows:

1 The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, Imports, and Excises, to pay the debts, pay for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, Imports, and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

2 To borrow money on the credit of the United States

3 To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states, and with Indian tribes

4 To establish and uniform Rule of Immigration, and uniform laws on the subject of Bankrupts throughout the United States

5 To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures

6 To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States

7 To establish Post offices and post roads

8 To promote the progress of sciences and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.

9 To constitute tribunals inferior to the supreme court

10 To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offenses against the laws of nations

The legislative department derives superiority in our government from other circumstances. Its constitutional powers being at once more extensive and less susceptible of precise limits, it can with greater facility, mask under complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments that it makes on the co-ordinate departments. It is not infrequently a question of real-nicety in legislative bodies, whether the operation of a particular measure, will, or will not extend beyond the legislative sphere. On the other side, the executive power being restrained within a narrower compass, and being more simple in its nature; and the judiciary being described by land marks, still less uncertain, projects of usurpation by either of these departments. Nor is this all: As the legislative department alone has access to the pockets of the people, and has in some Constitutions full discretion, and in all, a prevailing influence over the pecuniary rewards for those who fill the other departments, a dependence is thus created in the latter.

Congress, through its maze of committees and subcommittees (See Appendix C), has created a monster that has destroyed any separation of powers. I cannot fault Mr. Madison for relying on the distinct and separate functions of the three branches as sufficient to safeguard the balance of power. Mr. Madison believed the inherent powers of each branch would provide the checks and balances necessary for a smoothly functioning national government. This man of integrity could never have foreseen the greedy politicians and power hungry bureaucrats that thrive within the federal government.

In an effort to explain how the federal government has usurped the authority of the states by exercising power outside that which the U.S. Constitution granted it, I will use the Department of Justice as an example. Many Americans are unfamiliar with the phrase “federalization of criminal law.” This term refers to the federal government’s expansion of authority into areas of criminal law enforcement previously reserved to the states. In 1965, President Johnson declared war on crime when he signed into law the Omnibus Crime Control Safe Streets Act (Safe Streets Act). The Safe Streets Act was the vehicle that allowed the federal government to spend countless billions of dollars expanding the size and scope of the Department of Justice. In fact, the Safe Streets Act is the reason the Department of Justice is an organization comprised of thousands and thousands of lawyers. I cannot imagine how an organization comprised of so many lawyers could possibly accomplish anything other than promoting its own existence.

Following the passage of the Safe Streets Act, the Department of Justice created the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA). This organization was tasked with, among other things, measuring and analyzing crime. Fortunately for the American people, the LEAA was abolished in 1982. This did not, however, lead federal legislators to conclude that their efforts to fight crime had resulted in both a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars and an increase in crime. As crime began to permeate every level of society, politicians decided that the time had come to act. It did not matter that the U.S. Constitution expressly limited the types of criminal behavior the federal government was expressly authorized to curtail, politicians wanted to be able to tell their voters that they were fighting crime. In order to prove they were fighting crime, Congress began labeling as “federal crimes” behavior that the states had the sole responsibility to curtail.

In 1984, Congress passed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act thereby making many street crimes, including drug offenses, federal crimes. This twist of logic can only make sense in a world turned upside down. If, for example, an individual was convicted a third time for possessing illegal drugs, he was subject to federal law for violating a state criminal statute. This is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they adopted the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Founding Fathers intended for the states to be the adjudicator of crimes and that is why they worded the Tenth Amendment as they did.

State governments are not governmental bodies of limited powers like the federal government. State governments are independent entities, sovereigns in their own right, recognized as having a general or police power. This police power is not limited as is the power granted the federal government. Therefore, the inherent police power granted to the states under the U.S. Constitution is exactly that authority each state must exercise in protecting the health, safety and welfare of its citizens.

The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been subject to various interpretations. One such interpretation holds that criminal behavior in the fifty states is that which is defined by the legislatures of those states. I believe this was the Founding Fathers intent when they wrote the Bill of Rights. Nevertheless, when Congress passes a law addressing criminal behavior that law trumps those passed by the states to address the problem. This is known as federal supremacy. However, it is federal supremacy stood on its head.

I believe that if a federal criminal law addresses conduct affecting the health and safety of each citizen, it does so in violation of the supreme law of the land. Although I agree with the notion that federal law is supreme, it is only supreme if the law in question addresses conduct that was expressly enumerated in the U.S. Constitution as being conduct the federal government can regulate. As soon as Congress exercises authority outside the scope of these enumerated powers, the theory of federal supremacy must give way to the plain language of the U.S. Constitution and to police power of the states.

The federal government has grown to unimaginable proportions because the Judicial and Executive branches did nothing while these laws were passed. The Executive branch is responsible for enforcing the laws enacted by Congress. As Chief Executive Officer of the United States, the President should have acted to stop this unauthorized expansion of the federal government. Instead, presidents have been more concerned with expanding the Executive branch so that they may fill its ranks with political cronies and as an example of this phenomenon I offer the consequences of the federal expansion in the war on drugs. The federal government was never intended to be the primary adjudicator of drug offenses. Drug offenses are, by their very nature, crimes against the health and safety of the citizens of each state. Therefore, punishment for the commission of these crimes must be left to the states. There is no doubt that the illicit narcotics trade constitutes one of the most serious criminal and social issues of our time. However, this does not give the federal government the legal right or authority to expand in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Although I will address America’s epidemic of drug abuse in succeeding pages, the bottom line here is that our federal court system was not meant to adjudicate drug offenses. Our federal judges must be allowed to perform the tasks intended for them under the U.S. Constitution; an issue I will also address in the next chapter.

Expansion of our state courts to adjudicate all drug offenses is not an impossible task. Of course it will require placing more state judges on the bench, but the cost of this, in my opinion, will be minimal compared with the continued cost of adjudicating drug offenses in federal court. Removing all federal drug cases, save those relating to seizures on the High Seas, to state courts would not, in and of itself, affect the outcome of the trials. The result will be that the states deliver the punishment to those that use and/or distribute illegal drugs. The FBI should not and must not cease its investigations into illegal drug trafficking. On the contrary, under the system I propose, the only change would be the identity of the court. State prosecutors would use the laws of their respective states to try these individuals while state law enforcement agents would act with the assistance and support of the FBI. The federal government must support the states in prosecuting these crimes and this support must come in the form of working with and learning from the FBI.

Two more glaring examples of the federalization of criminal law are the Gun-Free School Zones Act and the Violence Against Women Act. Congress enacted these criminal statutes despite the fact that school violence and violence against women are not areas in which the federal government is permitted to act. These subjects directly relate to the health and safety of the citizens of each state, not the general welfare of the nation as a whole. General welfare relates to issues that transcend the idea of the state. Examples of the general welfare that should concern the federal government are those problems relating to energy and immigration. These are the areas of our national existence that the federal government was created to address.

For Congress to enact criminal laws using the “commerce clause” as authority of the U.S. Constitution is absurd. Although I will never understand their rationalization, it now appears as if the U.S. Supreme Court has awakened from its slumber. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Gun-Free Schools Zones Act because the exercise of authority was in violation of the U.S. Constitution. In examining what role the Department of Justice plays in our society, we must remember that its sole function is to enforce federal law. It is within the very mission of the Department of Justice that one finds the source of its unprecedented growth. The self-proclaimed Mission of the Department of Justice is “to enforce the law and defend the interests of the U.S. according to the law, provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime, seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior, administer and enforce the nation’s immigration laws fairly and effectively and ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.”[[52]]

The FBI and the USMS were originated when the Department of Justice was created. They were original members of the Department for two reasons: they played an essential role in the nation's administration of justice; and they were created because the authority they exercised came directly from the U.S. Constitution. Instead of strengthening the FBI (and the Offices of the United States Attorneys) to handle this expansion of authority, Congress decided to create separate law enforcement entities like the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). As you read through the U.S. Constitution at appendix B, I invite you to find where in the document it states that drugs, alcohol, firearms, community policing, violence against women and/or children are areas in which the federal government may exercise authority.

The Department of Justice did not exist until 1870. For nearly one hundred years, America’s leaders did not require a separate “justice” department. However, with the growth of the nation, it was only a matter of time before such a department became a necessity. Although it may appear that I am advocating for the abolition of the Department of Justice, I am not. On the contrary, as with the entire federal government, the Department of Justice needs to be significantly reduced in size and scope if it is to perform successfully the mission intended for it under the U.S. Constitution.

It is a matter of Constitutional law that the federal government exercise authority expressly enumerated to it by the U.S. Constitution. To this end, I offer the following areas of criminal behavior that are specifically addressed in the U.S. Constitution:

_ Piracy and other felonies on the High Seas (international law)

_ Counterfeiting

_ Violation of various tax laws

_ Crimes associated with interstate commerce, such as securities laws, banking laws, import-export laws and all fraud involving interstate commerce

_ All crimes occurring within the District of Columbia

_ Violations of U.S. immigration laws

_ Violations of federal patents, copyrights and other federally protected intellectual property rights

_ Criminal conduct by members of the United States Armed Forces

I have delineated these areas so that the reader may judge what crimes the Founding Fathers believed to be federal crimes. The above list is not intended to be an exhaustive examination of the only areas in which the federal government should exercise authority. My intention was to provide the reader with an idea of the categories of crimes the Founding Fathers believed to be federal in nature. Although I believe there are certain criminal acts that today should be the responsibility of the federal government, if they are not expressly delineated in the U.S. Constitution we must amend the U.S. Constitution so that such crimes are expressly enumerated therein. To do otherwise, would be in violation of the very document so many men and women have fought and died to preserve.

The following agencies within the Department of Justice provide excellent examples of this abuse of power: Office of Justice Programs, Community Orientated Policing Services, Community Relations Service, Office of Legislative Affairs, Drug Enforcement Administration, National Drug Intelligence Center (an oxymoron if I have ever heard one), Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics (the one I despise the most), Executive Office of Weed and Seed, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of State and Local Domestic Preparedness, Office of Victims of Crime and the Violence Against Women Office. All of these offices were created to address some piece of federal legislation aimed at curbing crime. Although I do not know how many billions of taxpayer dollars were wasted in these illegal offices, but I am quite sure the sums are staggering.

The Department of Justice’s Strategic Plan 1997-2002 lays out its plan for increasing the size of an already bloated and inefficient organization. The Strategic Plan 1997-2002 states that the projected growth of the Department of Justice from 1997 to 2002 in terms of full time federal employees is 113,286 in 1997 to 123,817 in 2002. In addition, the Department of Justice expects that the cost of running its various “programs” will increase from $18,756,000,000 in 1997 to $20,041,000,000 in 2002. For the fiscal year 2001, which begins October 1, 2000, the Department of Justice has estimated that its budget will be $19,516,000,000.

Finally, I can think of no better way to conclude this chapter than by relaying to you excerpts from a speech delivered by the former Attorney General to the annual convention of the American Bar Association, an organization that has worked hand-in-hand with government to place the interests of the criminal above those of the victim. The following excerpts from Ms. Reno’s speech have more force than anything I could write. Her words clearly illustrate that she places the rights of criminals before those of their victims and how liberty for the depraved has become the cornerstone of our compassionate criminal justice system. I offer you her words, not mine:

Thank you so very much, but it is I who take privilege to be with you today. This is my fourth time before this House. As I've told so many, I love the law, and I love good and caring lawyers. And I can tell you now this fourth time before you that after six and a half years in this office, though, feelings are stronger than ever, for I have seen you across America use the law to make things better for people. I've seen your efforts around the world, and based on what I have seen, I am prouder than ever to be a lawyer in the United States.

I would like to discuss with you in an informal way what I think is one of the great issues facing the legal profession in America. How do we increase public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system? How will we make the criminal justice system fair in the eyes of all of the people? How do we enable the criminal justice system to better solve the problems of the people and to help heal the harm that caused them to come into the system in the first place?¼

3 Hell Is For Children

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones

which believe in me, it were better for him that

a millstone were hanged around his neck, and

that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 18:6

I have seen the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts. I have driven her golden valleys. I have lived the American dream. Nevertheless, it is not America’s beauty that moves me. It is the ugly reality that her diamond deserts and golden valleys are stained with the blood of so many innocent women and children that moves me. All this pain and suffering exists and our government washes its hands while we look away. History may well record that it was America’s indifference to her children’s suffering that caused her fall from grace.

There can be no refuting the fact that governments (state and federal) release dangerous pedophiles, rapists and murderers every day from America’s prisons based solely on the fact that these men “behaved” in prison or the money has run out to hold them. Whatever the reason, there is irrefutable evidence that these men will commit the same crimes again once released. Therefore, since this is my land too, I wish to live in a land where the blood of rapists, murderers and pedophiles is spilled and not the blood of innocent children that flows like rainwater. It is time we defend those who cannot defend themselves.

Every eighteen seconds, a criminal beats a woman in the United States. Every year over one million women require medical attention because of domestic abuse.[[53]] Most alarming is the fact that much of this abuse occurs before the very eyes of so many frightened children. Two questions I would ask the reader to contemplate while reading this chapter are: 1) How does a child feel when it sees it mother beaten and 2) How does a child react when it realizes no one cares. I believe when you finish this chapter, you too will agree that the answer to both these questions is the child would react by committing acts of violence that only a few short years ago would have seemed unthinkable coming from a child.

In his 1801 inaugural address, President Jefferson alluded to the primary reason government was necessary. President Jefferson understood that a "wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another" was the primary justification for government. Thomas Jefferson was also a man that understood the value of a well-armed citizenry. And when government no longer restrained men from injuring one another, men like Thomas Jefferson knew it was the responsibility of the people to restrain men from injuring others. He knew well the value of individual responsibility.

The abandonment of individual responsibility did not occur overnight, it occurred over the course of decades. It was through a political process that continually embraced free expression that made individual responsibility politically incorrect. It was the all-encompassing drive for more individual liberty, in the name of political correctness, that brought the criminal justice system to its knees. Shifting of blame and fault are still in vogue. It is politically correct. Liberalism and its misplaced focus on rehabilitation and compassion for the depraved fertilized the seedbed in society from which crime, in all its mutant glory, has sprung to terrorize the many at the risk of punishing the few.

What is true about crime is that the incidences of crime should be down. Crime should be reduced if for only two reasons. First, the increase in the number of persons incarcerated should translate into dramatic crime reductions. Second, the success of the economy and the low unemployment rate should have also caused a significant reduction in the impetus to commit crime. However, this has not been the case. Unless, of course, you believe that a three to six percent drop in certain reported crimes equates to a reduction in crime across the nation. I think it is just the federal speak spewed forward by Washington D.C. so many times before. Do not believe it!

The Department of Justice supports its assertion that crime has dropped with flawed and inaccurate statistics. Their assertion is not based on an actual or real reduction in criminal activity, but rather upon a decrease in the number of certain crimes reported. The fallacy of crime reduction is perpetuated within the Beltway because it serves the interests of politicians as they campaign for election.[[54]] The belief in crime reduction does not exist within the minds of the one million women raped every year in America. It certainly does not exist within the minds of the parents whose children fall victim to the predators that live among us. Nevertheless, I shall return to the fallacy of crime measurement later in this chapter. The thoughts and ideas of those that embrace statistics have no place in a discussion of what is being done to children the world over.

When the economy slows, unemployment rises and a few million inmates are released, America will begin to experience an increase in violent crime that will continue for many years to come. Although this increase will not be dramatic, it will be steady and continuous and proof of this assertion can be found in two places. First, the ever-increasing violent nature of children stands as a shining example of what lies ahead. The effect of the violence inflicted upon our children, whether in the form of violent messages or physical and sexual abuse, is now beginning to reveal itself. If we think the violent messages sent to our children every day has no effect on them, then we are as ignorant as those who believe six, seven and eight year-old children can distinguish between violent images on television and real violence. The fact that children claim to understand the difference does not make it so. Second, America will experience an increase in violent crime because a large percentage of the current prison population will soon be eligible for parole. Angry, disillusioned and unemployed, these men will emerge more angry and violent than before their rehabilitation. Despite the fact that they served only a fraction of the sentences imposed upon them, their prison experiences changed them forever. Unfortunately, these changes were not for the better.

It is a fact that our governments, both state and federal, have undertaken a massive incarceration program resulting in a tripling of our prison population since 1980. Although this may seem unbelievable, it is true. This policy of increased incarceration is only a stopgap measure, not a solution. Our government’s policy of incarceration will, in the end, only aggravate an already dire situation. One cannot treat the epidemic of crime with a bandage. It can only be treated by a reformation of society. The result of this policy can only be that dangerous predators will be released before their sentences are served. Since we no longer have room in our prisons to house these criminals, every time a new criminal enters the system one must exit. This is the game parole boards play every day. It is also the reason why rapists and murders escape their paltry sentences.

Yet the most devastating consequence of our government's policy of incarceration may be the propagation of the idea that evil men can be rehabilitated. This tired, liberal notion has gained popularity again despite the revolving door that is our prison system. The notion of rehabilitation died a natural death long ago but it is again rearing its ugly head.[[55]] And because of this revolving door system, many professionals are turning to the idea of rehabilitation simply because the same criminals are returning to prison time and time again. They think that if they can rehabilitate only a few, it will make a difference in the long run. It will not make a difference because the criminal element is growing and growing fast.

The reader may wonder why I continue to refer to crime as being of epidemic proportions. The answer is that crime is at epidemic proportions. It is an epidemic that our politicians refuse to admit is real because so many have claimed it was their policies that brought crime under control. Crime is not under control. Whether it is the criminal greed of America’s corporate leaders, the criminal failures of the federal government or the criminal conspiracy of Catholic priests to keep secret the rapes of young boys, crime is alive and well in America. How ironic that crime and the ever-expanding federal government present two of the most promising areas of job growth in America.

Since the 1960s, countless politicians have used the epidemic of crime as part of their campaign platforms. In fact, many Americans will remember the late Barry Goldwater’s message that crime was destroying America; a message used by politicians on both sides of the aisle as sound bites in their campaign rhetoric. This rhetoric was believable because crime was truly an epidemic sweeping America. It was then that America began to see individual liberty replace individual responsibility as the foundation upon which men were judged. The American people have failed to realize that order is the seedbed from which liberty rises.

If the 1960s left any legacy, it was not that war was horrific. Intelligent men already knew this. The legacy of the 1960s was the abdication of individual responsibility. Despite what many like to think, the civil rights movement is not a legacy of the 1960s. The civil rights movement began when young men of the Union Army started dying so that other men would be free. The 1860s left as its legacy the inalienable right of all men to be free. The revolution of the 1960s only paved the way for the 1970s - a decade with which I am all too familiar.

In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, no reasonable person would have argued that crime was not at epidemic proportions. Today, however, politicians never admit that crime is at epidemic proportions. On the contrary, they boldly assert that crime has decreased across the nation. Unfortunately, they support these assertions with flawed and inaccurate statistics. The American people must understand that crime is still at epidemic proportions. The only reason it is not perceived as such is because we, as a society, have become desensitized to crime. Just as we have become desensitized to the violence perpetrated against our children, we have also become desensitized to the very pervasiveness of crime.

If crime is not at epidemic proportions, how do we account for the one million or more rapes that occur every year in America? How do we account for the growing phenomenon of child violence sweeping our nation? And how do we account for the enormous prison population that exists in America today?[[56]] The United States prison population has increased over sixty percent since President Clinton took office. In 1996 alone, our prison population hit record highs when it increased by sixty thousand. Today, there are over 1.25 million men and women locked up in our prisons. Presidents Bush and Clinton realized the value of incarceration not as a means to an end but an end in and of itself. For President Bush, it was the ability to say he was waging the war against drugs. For President Clinton, it was the ability to say crime had dropped across the nation.

If the reader hopes to understand how and why our system of justice collapsed, it is necessary to examine the American criminal justice system from a historical perspective. But before I offer my ideas regarding the reformation of the American criminal justice system, I want to first address two underlying myths of our criminal justice system that must be debunked. The first myth is the idea that we would rather see ten guilty men set free than one innocent man in prison. The second myth is the idea that justice is blind.

I believe the idea that our society would rather have ten guilty men go free rather than one innocent man imprisoned is nonsense. If the crime is petty theft or drug use, I agree. However, if the crime is rape, kidnapping, child abuse, aggravated assault and/or murder, I disagree. How can we rationalize allowing ten of these animals to prey again upon the innocent when the only cost to society in preventing such horrors is the freedom of one man? Liberals and many conservatives scream that it is a travesty of justice if an innocent man is sent to prison but they remain silent when another predator recently released from prison takes another of His angels. Never forget that such protestations are indicative of their failure to recognize the impact their ideas of justice have had on America’s children.

The belief that our system of justice is so efficient that no innocent people go to jail perverts the truth. Innocent men do go to jail and guilty men go free every day. This is the reality of our system of justice and both sides of the political aisle are to blame. Moreover, to believe that the freedom of one man is more important than the health and safety of ten children is as misguided a notion as believing rapists deserve another chance to rape. I say, “Not in my country.” Yes, I do believe people make mistakes. I also believe people should be given a second chance provided that the first mistake did not involve a wanton act of cruelty. A rapist does not deserve a second chance. A murderer must never be given a second chance. To give a child rapist the opportunity to rape another child is a crime far worse than taxation without representation. And if someone asked me if I would be willing to be the innocent man imprisoned for the sake of ten children’s lives, I would answer, “Yes!” I believe most parents, especially those who have lost an angel to such monsters, would respond in the same fashion. In fact, I believe many of these men and women would freely walk with me to the gallows provided ten child rapists were joining each one of us.

The second myth that must be dispelled is the belief that our system of justice is blind. Justice is not blind. She certainly is not color blind. She has no problem seeing the color green. For those who are wealthy enough to afford the best attorneys, justice is anything but blind. Many Americans have long maintained that the criminal justice system discriminates against minorities. They argue, quite persuasively, that white America does not have to account for its crimes in the same fashion as non-whites. However, the prejudice that non-whites experience within our system of justice is not due to the color of their skin. It is simply a matter of economics. If you have enough money, you will not have to pay for your crimes. America witnessed this fact first hand when Mr. Simpson was tried for the murders of two people. The fact that Mr. Simpson is African American and wealthy demonstrates that American justice cares not for the color of one’s skin, just the color of one’s money. Indigent white people fare just as poorly in our criminal justice system as indigent non-whites. Let us not fool ourselves about a racist criminal justice system. The system is not racist; it favors the rich. American’s are naive if they think a system of justice can be created where lawyers play a pivotal role and money is not the overriding concern. Has America not learned anything from the past forty years? When lawyers are involved everything has a price and that includes justice.

Finally, I cannot leave this section without addressing the failure of the jury system in America to keep pace with the changes occurring in the Age of Technology. It is time Americans realize that the jury system of common law was premised upon two important facts. First, citizen jurors of yesterday took pride in serving on a jury. They wanted to see justice firsthand. Today, very few men and women want to involve themselves in the legal system. It is a system that manipulates people and the truth and therefore is despised by the very people it fails to protect. And if anyone thinks the jury system has become anything more than a jury pool of retirees, disabled Americans and otherwise unoccupied citizens, they need only travel to their local courthouse and see who is sitting in the jury box. Second, citizen jurors were expected to be intelligent enough to understand the intricacies of a prosecutor’s or claimant’s case. In the Age of technology this is no longer possible.

I know that many will claim the American jury system is the essence of the American system of justice and therefore must be preserved. I disagree. Americans need to understand that in a society as sophisticated and complex as ours, if jurors do not keep pace with the changes occurring in the Age of Technology, they will not be able to understand the issues surrounding subjects as complex as DNA testing and patent infringement. It is only logical to conclude that in the age of information, the time was bound to come when men and women well versed in these fields of expertise would be needed to understand many of the complex litigations currently awaiting adjudication. Professional juries will improve the efficiency of justice, reduce court costs and hinder the ability of the wealthy to escape justice by the impact their money and lawyers have on the judicial process in America.

Causes of Crime and the Fallacy of Crime Measurement

Criminology is the scientific study of crime. Although not a science, many in the field of criminology would like us to believe it has evolved into a science. Criminology is not a science. It is the guesswork of professionals that claim to know why people commit crimes. The past one hundred years have witnessed a series of self-righteous, high-minded intellectuals touting their discoveries as to why people commit crimes. Safely ensconced in their ivory towers, they claimed that they alone understood why criminals act as they do. I assert that anyone who claims to understand why a person would rape or murder a child is a liar. A crime so heinous as the rape or murder of a child defies explanation. It defies human comprehension and, as such, is beyond our simple capacity to understand or explain. Maybe some day, further along our evolutionary ladder, we will understand what motivates someone to commit such heinous acts. Today, we must exert our every effort to see that they are prevented from doing it again!

As much as I believe there is a need to study the causation of crime, I do not believe we need to study the reasons behind the rape of a woman. Likewise, a society does not need to study the motivation of a man who abducts and murders a child. Regardless of their “motivation” the act is inexcusable and any effort to understand the intentions of such evil men only serves to mitigate the offense. What we need to do is find better ways to aid victims of violent crime in their long road to recovery. It is time we spend the resources necessary to treat those unfortunate and innocent souls that suffer from mental illness. The serial rapist and child molester have wasted enough of our precious resources. It is time we help those deserving of help while we punish those that deserve it.

I will not undertake an in-depth analysis of every theory of crime and its causation. I believe it sufficient for the purposes of this chapter that my analysis focuses on only a few such theories. In the late 19^th century, Cesare Lomborso (1835-1905) began to study human cadavers to ascertain whether criminals were physically different from non-criminals. It is generally agreed among most in academia that Lomborso is the father of criminology. Cesare Lomborso's work is important because, for the first time, science and the scientific method were utilized in an attempt to answer the question of why an individual committed crimes. Cesare Lomborso focused his analysis on property and theft crimes and, to a lesser extent, other crimes such as murder. Lomborso believed criminals had certain inherited physical characteristics. These born criminals were somehow, in Lomborso's opinion, more primitive than law-abiding members of society. This idea was very much accepted in his day. Unfortunately, Lomborso’s theory of biological determinism did not withstand critical analysis. Nevertheless, one should not dismiss Lomborso’s work as preposterous. Some of the outrageous theories proposed today make Lomborso's work seem profound. In his day, Lomborso was not only intelligent but also revolutionary. The same cannot be said of modern theorists.

Emile Durkheim (1855-1917) proposed an even more radical idea as to why people commit crimes. Emile Durkheim reasoned that crime was a "normal and necessary social event.” Durkheim concluded that because crime has existed in every stage of man's existence and pervades every social class, crime itself must be normal. It is hard to ignore the realities of this assertion. However, as an intelligent species, we can never accept such a conclusion or we would condemn ourselves to a state of perpetual crime as the expected norm. To accept Ms. Durkheim’s proposition does not alleviate us from our responsibility of keeping our women and children safe. It is hard to imagine two more contrasting views of criminology than those of Lomborso and Durkheim. Yet, compared to some of the theories proposed today, their theories seem enlightened.

As our society progressed into the 20^thcentury, more criminologists and sociologists attempted to explain why criminals behave as they do. Some of these theories resemble those of Lomborso and Durkheim while others have undertaken a more social-based approach. These social-based theories are rooted more in common sense than any specific cause(s). These social-based approaches look for blame in places other than where it belongs. What then are the theories men are putting forth today to explain why criminals act as they do?

The theories of late 20^th century America are as widely diverse as the morally bankrupt "black man’s rage" defense to the preposterous idea that those that have sex with children have not committed any crimes but are instead men with a disease warranting treatment - treatment for which you and I must pay. Some theorists have even argued that people who commit violent crimes during times of public chaos are not guilty of criminal behavior. They offer as an excuse that the hysteria caused by riots, like those seen in Los Angeles following the first Rodney King verdict, is the real cause for the violent behavior committed by some. They argue that the individual indulging in such hysteria as looting and attacking innocent bystanders is not responsible for his actions. It is said that the hysteria made them do it. I remember seeing on TV that innocent man pulled from his truck and beaten with a brick. To many sociologists, the animals administering this beating were not responsible for their actions because their ability to differentiate between right and wrong was somehow impaired by the hysteria of the riots. They could not be held accountable, according to this theory, because their judgment was impaired. I do not know where these criminals are today, but I suspect they are free and probably enjoying the fruits of their other illegal activities.

All three of the above mentioned “theories” of crime causation do not explain why people commit crimes. Rather, these theories articulate the modernist’s propensity to erase the concept of individual responsibility from the theoretical field of criminology. It is perplexing and indeed sad to endure supposedly intelligent men and women advocating at the theoretical level that someone or something else must be to blame for the criminal conduct of others. These theories provide proof positive that our criminal justice system has abandoned the idea of personal responsibility altogether.

I realize that there are many criminologists and social scientists working on various theories positing mental illness as a cause of criminal behavior. However, these theories focus more on the treatment of recognized mental illnesses rather than providing an explanation of criminal behavior. And it is the issues surrounding mental illness that brings to light another pathetic aspect of our American system of justice. Every American should agree that mental illness is a serious ailment. In fact, we are only now beginning to fully understand the magnitude of these unique diseases. We know that in the past, people who suffered from mental illnesses were treated worse than criminals. We also know that such treatment was and is an injustice. Yet, this injustice continues even today. And it occurs mainly to assist the wicked.

Today, mental institutions have become a safe harbor for the truly depraved. Mental institutions house criminals because we cannot build prisons fast enough to imprison the growing population of violent sexual and non-sexual predators. Instead, our governments use mental institutions for such purposes.[[60]] Rather than help these unfortunate souls afflicted with the wide variety of mental illnesses that we are only beginning to identify, we use mental institutions to house criminals because there is no more room in our prison systems. This is an unmitigated disgrace. Our political leaders are solely responsible for this disgrace.

As I concluded my studies toward a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, I learned firsthand what is being done to the mentally ill. So many people suffering from mental illness are not receiving the medical treatment they deserve because our mental institutions are filled with serial rapists and murderers. These monsters usurp the limited resources that could be used for the treatment of the mentally ill. This situation is all the more deplorable when one realizes that many of the criminals parked in our mental institutions are merely feigning mental illness to escape the consequences of their actions. I have never agreed with those that believe someone could be “not guilty” of crimes they committed while insane. The fact that someone commits a criminal act is the only issue that should be relevant in a criminal inquiry. Is this not logical? The insanity defense stands for the proposition that the criminal is more important than society. The interests of the criminal are placed before those of society each time someone is allowed to plead insanity. In short, the insanity defense is another example of society shifting the burden of responsibility from where it belongs. Let us not waste another precious dollar on evil men when good men suffer.

It is easy to criticize. Criticism of others comes all too easily in our litigation-crazed society. It is another thing altogether to offer instead a solution of your own. Therefore, I offer the following two theories on why most people commit most crimes. First, people commit most crimes because crime pays. It is far easier to steal than to work and the growing prevalence of fraud is proof of this assertion. Second, a great many people commit crimes a great many crimes because they are evil. Proof of this assertion can be found in the bruised and battered bodies of His angels. Evil preys upon innocence and has done so since time immemorial.

The old adage that crime does not pay belongs to a time when criminals were truly punished for their crimes. When individual responsibility was the order of the day crime did not in fact pay. Why should a man fear the consequences of his actions when he knows that the chances of his arrest and conviction are remote? Moreover, why worry about being convicted of rape as it will only cost a few years in prison - a prison filled with every comfort the criminal is often too lazy to secure on his own? In the time of our Founding Fathers, when a man raped a woman he paid his debt to society with his life. This is why crime did not pay and why over 1 million women every year are raped in America.

The idea that crime pays is all around us. We see it glamorized on television. We see the news media spotlight the wealth of gangsters. We watch as embezzlers are slapped on the wrist for stealing millions. And of course, our children listen as “spin-doctors” tell them how obstruction of justice and perjury might be criminal offenses, but not ones for which the President of the United States should pay. As for the evil men that prey upon women and children, I am sure some sociologists and criminologists will argue that the answer to why people commit crimes cannot possibly be that simple. They are wrong. It is that simple.

One of the major problems with modern society is that our political leaders think the solution to every problem must be as complex as the problem itself. The problems facing the world today are indeed complex, but the solutions to many of these problems are simple. Sacrifice is at the core of every solution and the reformation of American society is no exception.

As for the myth that crime can be measured, it is time to dispel this myth once and for all. The idea that crime can be accurately measured is a lie. And since I want to engage the reader in a cogent examination of our criminal justice system, it is imperative that this myth be exposed for the puffery it represents. The notion that crime can be measured must be discarded to prevent such an examination from degenerating into a battle of competing statistics.[[61]] Any examination of our current system of injustice can only begin after dismissing the preposterous idea that crime can be measured. We must never entertain argument on the issue of measuring crime. It simply cannot be done with any real accuracy.

Contrary to what the former President of the United States says, the former Attorney General preaches and the Department of Justice contends, I assert that the incidences of crime have not dropped, but actually increased. What has decreased is the reporting of crime. The citizens of the United States, especially those in crime-ravished neighborhoods, have grown so disillusioned with our system of justice they are not wasting their time reporting crime or, in the alternative, are taking matters into their own hands. I understand the former, wholly support the latter and will always endeavor to help those that take matters into their own hands in order to protect our children. When it comes to the health and safety of our nation’s future, the ends do justify the means.

In support of my contention that crime measurement is preposterous, I offer the following two Los Angeles Times articles released within two months of one another. They are very typical of what is really happening all around us. The first article made the bold assertion that violent crime had fallen in Los Angeles by ten percent in 1997.[[62]] The article went on to report that violent crime had fallen not just in L.A., but as much as five percent nationwide. It is ridiculous to think we can measure crime so precisely that we know if crime is up or down by 10%.

The article quoted Attorney General Janet Reno as saying this decrease in violent crime was due to President Clinton’s support of local police. It is hard to imagine anything further from the truth. How can a President that obstructs justice and lies under oath be a supporter of law enforcement? How can the United States Attorney General expect the American people to believe her claims that crime has dropped when she has done everything in her power to prevent the discovery of the truth surrounding President Clinton’s conduct? Crime has certainly not dropped in the White House and I do not believe it has decreased anywhere else in America. What I do believe is that many Americans, especially those in the upper economic tier, are fortunate that violent crime has not ripped apart their lives as it does the lives of so many poor. The poor long ago abandoned the criminal justice system as a means of redress if only because they know it favors the wealthy. As for those lucky enough to have all the advantages of life, I would remind them that this is only by the grace of God. We must never forget that at any moment, on any given day, that could change forever!

As for the second article, it appeared less than two months before the first. Rather than make bold assertions like crime has dropped 10%, it seems the Los Angeles Times decided that a true reflection of violent crime in Los Angeles can be painted by using cold, hard facts. These cold, hard facts were provided to the people of Los Angeles on March 31, 1998.[[63]] The Los Angeles Times published an article stating that child abuse deaths had actually increased from 1995 to 1996. Specifically, the article reported that of the fifty-three (53) children murdered in Los Angeles in 1996, county social workers were only aware that thirteen (13) of the missing angels were living in situations where abuse or death was likely to occur. This should be no surprise to anyone who knows the plight of children in the state of California.

I have no doubt that thirteen of these angels were subjected to abusive environments before their horrible deaths. What I doubt is that only fifty-three children were murdered in Los Angeles County during 1997. The reason for my doubt is that many of the children who were reported missing from Los Angeles in 1997 were never found. When a child is reported missing but never found, he or she is not listed as being murdered or even kidnapped. They are simply listed as missing. How can this be? How can we assume the best when the facts staring us in the face prove the worst? We can and do because we are nation that has abandoned our children. We, the enabled, have cast aside the poor and downtrodden children of America claiming we only need to care for our children and not the children of others. It is the politically expedient thing to do in a society turned upside down.

The second Los Angeles Times article did establish that thirteen children died horrible deaths that the county knew could occur. The article provides direct evidence of our government’s inability to protect even the children it knows to be in perilous danger. When President Clinton proclaimed that the problems facing America’s children were too complex for government to understand, he was not joking. Such failure provides enough compelling evidence to convince us the time has come to alter or abolish our system of justice. If that means altering or abolishing the government that sanctions it, so be it.

It appears that the county of Los Angeles, the state of California and the federal government did not consider the thirteen children, living in situations where abuse was likely, worthy of their intervention. Or, in the alternative, they did care but were powerless to act because they fear litigation. Although I do not know which is worse, I do know that 13 angels went missing from our lives and our governments did nothing to stop it. How do I explain this to my children? As for those that wonder why the county of Los Angeles did not act to save these angels, the reason was local government officials are tentative in addressing child abuse because they are afraid of the lawsuits brought by parents and civil libertarians alleging violation of parental rights. It is a fact that child welfare agencies are afraid of being sued for violating the civil rights of parents. Lawyers are first in line to tell parents when their “rights” have been violated. It is all a matter of economics. Lawsuits cost money and murdered children do not.

Ironically, local law enforcement knows who these criminals are and where they live. They are only hesitant to confront the abuser because they know any such confrontation will only spur these cowards to further violence. Moreover, it is fear of the child being further beaten that prevents many local law enforcement officers from arresting the abusers in the first place. They know the abusers will be back in the home within hours, more angry and violent than before they were arrested. And as I think about those angels in Los Angeles that everyone knew to be in trouble but for whom no one cared to act, I wonder how our politicians would react if thirteen members of Congress were beaten to death? I suspect the murder of thirteen members of Congress would bring forth an outrage from Capitol Hill unlike anything ever heard before from that “hallowed ground.” Maybe someday we shall hear this outrage and maybe, just maybe, the next generation of Americans will not care.

The Los Angeles Times provided further insight into what happens to children in Los Angeles. According to Los Angeles County’s Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, child abuse deaths were down from the previously reported year.[[64]] The article contends that in 1997, there were forty-five children murdered at the hands of their caregivers, down from fifty-three the year before. However, the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect also reported that child homicides remained constant for the last nine years while fetal deaths rose. It appears as if the Los Angeles Times, the author, the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect, or all three, took some solace in the fact that the only reason the 1996 figure was so high was because a man skewed the figures by burning his house down with his wife and six children inside.

It is a fact that many child abuse experts believe tens of thousands of children are at considerable risk of abuse and/or death on any given day. Many experts, too numerous to cite here, believe that child welfare agencies and law enforcement are missing a large number of child abuse cases. No one is sure the extent to which children are abused and neglected in this country. The epidemic of crime that has swept this nation over the last forty years has been propelled to the levels we see today because of the meteoric rise in child abuse. As violence against children continues unabated in our land of the free, home of the depraved so too will we see an increase in the number of children that commit acts of violence so savage as to make us collectively shudder in disbelief.

When the President of the United States stood before the American people in 1997 and declared that the problems facing America’s children are beyond the capacity of government to address or even understand, I realized we had failed as a society.[[65]] We failed because we elected a man that has given up on our children. We failed because we have placed the rights of child abusers, rapists and murderers before those of our children. We must never surrender the security of our children. To do so evinces cowardice, not obedience to the law. And despite the fact that President Clinton admits the problems facing our children are beyond his capacity to understand, we must force it to understand and we must do so before it is too late.

The very idea that crime can be measured is a lie. It is just another trick employed by politicians and bureaucrats to convince the American people that they have made a difference. Politicians preaching that their policies have reduced crime are liars. The politicians offering statistics to support their claims that crime is decreasing are nothing more than con men out to preserve the status quo. They will never change the status quo, as life is far too good to change the status quo.

According to many “experts,” the most respected measurement of crime in America is the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs). The UCRs are derived using data from eight "index" crimes. These index crimes are: willful murder, forcible rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, larceny, arson and motor vehicle theft. The raw data that is used to generate the UCRs is simply the number of crimes reported to the police. In other words, the UCRs measure crime simply by recording the frequency with which such crimes are reported to the police. This method of crime measurement is troubling for obvious reasons. For purposes of understanding the shortcomings of crime measurement, five problematic areas will be examined.

The first area relates to the crime of rape. There are very few crimes in the catalog of our pathetic species that can match the banality of rape. It is hard to imagine more convincing evidence that our nation is falling from grace than the amount of prison time a man receives for raping a woman. The fact that the UCRs address only forcible rape eliminates statutory rape from the equation. Although this failure to acknowledge the impact of statutory rape is unbelievable, it does serve to further convince me how little children really matter in Washington D.C. Therefore, I believe without reservation that the UCRs do not reflect the true number of actual rapes. I believe there are over one million rapes per year in the United States. Moreover, I believe rape is second only to child abuse as the least reported crime in America. I believe this because I have witnessed how women are treated when they report being raped. I witnessed how the rights of rapists are protected while the rights of rape victims disregarded. I watched as the poor and less fortunate members of society grow increasingly disillusioned with the American criminal justice system and are therefore less likely to report a crime they know will not be addressed in any meaningful manner. I see the entertainment industry, particularly the video game and motion picture industry, as it continues to portray women solely as sex objects. I watch in amazement as rapists are released after spending only a few years in prison. And I watch in amazement as my nation falls from grace.

My own life experiences reinforce my belief that rape is one of the least reported crimes. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan I had the unfortunate opportunity to know two people that were raped.[[66]] One I know very well. I saw firsthand the effects rape had on her. I saw how this brutal act destroys a life. Of the two people I knew that were raped only one reported the rape to the police. She regretted ever doing it. The other did not report the rape because the rapist was someone he knew and feared. This is the ugly reality of rape. Until rapists fear the consequences of their vile acts, they will never stop. I cannot help but wonder when the men of America will stand up and say enough is enough. When will they stand up for the women and children they proclaim to love? If they fail to stand and be counted, they will have no one to blame when their wives, daughters, mothers and sisters look them in the eye and ask, “What have you done to prevent this from happening to me?”

The second fallacy of the UCRs involves child abuse. There is no doubt in my mind that the greatest tragedy in America is that of abused and murdered children. It is for all the missing angels that we must dedicate our efforts to not only reform our system of justice, but our society as a whole. When I refer to missing angels, I am not simply referring to those children that were never found. I am referring to all the children who spent their short lives in situations where physical and sexual abuses were every day events. I am referring to the children who only knew two things in life: pain and death. And although the remainder of my life may indeed be short, it will not have been as short as the lives of countless thousands of these angels.

It seems the effects of child abuse are not serious enough to warrant inclusion in Department of Justice’s UCRs. It seems that the pain suffered by children is unimportant to these federal bureaucrats. Purposeful omissions and inattention to such real issues as child abuse are what make the UCRs worthless as an indication of crime in America. The UCRs do not reflect child abuse because, in my opinion, child abuse is so systemic in our society that if the UCRs were to include this as an index crime it would invite inquiry. It would result in an inquiry that would lead to the conclusion that we are a society that tolerates violence against children. If the UCRs were to include this as an index crime, it would present such a horrible picture of the state of this Union’s children that it might provide the impetus to reform the American criminal justice system and the government that administers it.

If we, the enabled, are going to change our society to one where children are cherished above else, we must renew our society’s commitment to the preservation of the child. If our system of justice worked as intended, most of these angels would never have suffered the pain resulting from the rape and/or torture that surely preceded many of their deaths. The last moments of these angels’ lives were spent in unimaginable fear and pain, hoping against all hope that they would be saved. Their last breath was most likely one word: mom.

Each year, approximately one million children are reported missing in America. According to Interpol, over 500,000 online photos depicting children engaging in sexual acts were seized in the United States. There is a very real connection between these two facts and the time has come for America to wake up. Pedophiles are responsible for the disappearance of most of the children that are never found. The reality is these children are used for sex; often starved into performing for the same men whose right to distribute such filth is protected by our judicial system under the guise of free speech and commerce. These children are simply murdered after the “party” because it is so easy to dispose of such small things. Do these words upset you? Are you offended by my bluntness? I am very sorry if I have caused you any discomfort. If I have, please return to the world in which you live and forget about the children raped and abused every day. It is easier to live life without knowing such things, is it not? If, however, you are as angry as I, then tell me so there will be no doubt who stood with me. He keeps track of such things. And so should you.

The third fallacy of the UCRs involves the reporting of drug offenses. The reader should know that the most common reason for incarcerating someone in this country is not included as a measurement criterion in the UCRs. How can the UCRs accurately depict crime in America when those who sell cocaine and heroin are not worthy of inclusion? It is absurd. Drug traffickers have had a profound impact on society and must be considered as part of the criminal equation. The fact that so many of them fill our prisons would seem reason enough to include drug offenses in the UCRs. However, the FBI does not want to include drug offenses because it would be far too difficult an undertaking. The UCR’s are neatly divided into categories that bureaucrats can easily assign a number. It is far easier to assemble the UCRs without having to reference the on-going drug war.

The fourth reason why the UCRs are not a true indication of crime in America relates to the first index crime - willful murder. What is willful murder? What does this statistic mean? Since we know that approximately ninety percent of all felony convictions in the United States are the result of plea bargains, does willful murder include the criminal that pleads to aggravated assault, manslaughter, or negligent homicide? No crime statistic has been more manipulated to serve some interest than murder.

The fifth and most glaring reason why the UCRs represent only one small slice of the American criminal pie is that many crimes go undetected and therefore unreported. Chief among these unreported crimes are those relating to sexual and physical abuse of children. Whether the crime is incest, sexual molestation or a myriad of other abuses, the probability that such crimes will be reported is slight. Crimes like domestic abuse and child abuse are without a doubt crimes that often remain in the home. They are, coincidentally, the crimes tearing at the very fabric of our nation. Along with alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and child abuse are the crimes that fuel the great cycle of teenage violence, teenage suicide, teenage drug abuse and teenage pregnancy. Moreover, it is simply not enough to conclude that crime measurement is a fallacy. The UCRs represent more than just flawed statistics. To simply conclude that the UCRs are inaccurate is to miss a key point. The UCRs are direct evidence that the Department of Justice has involved itself in an area of our national existence that the Founding Fathers intended to be the responsibility of the states. Where does the Department of Justice obtain its authority to waste billions in taxpayer dollars compiling such useless figures?

The compilation of the UCRs themselves requires an expansion of the bureaucracy that is the Department of Justice. The mere fact that assembling the UCRs requires hundreds of federal employees supports my assertion that the Department of Justice is the most misguided and inefficient organization within the federal government. In my opinion, the UCRs were created to convince the American people that the Department of Justice is doing something to prevent crime. The truth is the Department of Justice is more about power, privilege and the means to keep it than crime prevention. The UCRs serve absolutely no purpose. Even if they were accurate, they would still be worthless because the system that would utilize the reports has so miserable a record of performance that even an accurate description of crime in America would change nothing. The uselessness of the UCRs may be compared to the example of a medical report in which a dentist is informed that his patient is in need of immediate brain surgery. He can do nothing to cure his patient.

The Reformation of the Criminal Justice System

I first began to think seriously about crime and all its consequences after reading Thinking About Crime by James Q. Wilson. I believe Thinking About Crime began a journey that ended with the writing of this book. Ironically, I did not reference Mr. Wilson’s work in the first edition of this book. Even more confounding was that it took nearly three weeks after the first edition’s printing to detect my negligence. Therefore, I will not detail the brilliance of Mr. Wilson’s work. Although I probably should, I will only write that it profoundly changed my vision of the world around me.

When I finished reading Thinking About Crime, I began to see the 1960s in very a different light. Maybe it was because many others were analyzing the 1960s in the 1980s that I too began to think about the 1960s. Or, maybe it was because those who claimed to be children of the 1960s were now in leadership positions across America. However, the reason why I began this reflection is irrelevant. What is relevant is that I came to the conclusion that the 1960s was the last decade in which the criminal justice system was capable of managing the criminal element in society. In 1960, our system of justice was capable of deterring crime because individual responsibility was still the order of the day. There was no perceived necessity to “fix the system” because it was working.

As I looked for an event in the 1960s that may have sparked the “revolution” that promised to change the status quo, my search always ended in Dallas, Texas. I believe history will record that the shots fired that fateful November day provided the impetus for the abandonment of individual responsibility – the true legacy of the 1960s. And I believe the assassination of President Kennedy was a watershed event in the life of our nation because the American people witnessed what happens to those that want to change the status quo.

As I studied American history from that point in time, I found a nation of individuals seeking greater liberty while accepting less responsibility. I discovered a nation that embraced wealth as the path to happiness. Whether it was the draft dodger who proclaimed his right to avoid service to his country or the married couple that proclaimed divorce as the answer to their unhappiness, the one undeniable fact of the 1960s is the triumph of the individual over the majority, especially our children. And when a society removes individual responsibility from its core values and replaces it with an all-encompassing pursuit of more and more personal freedom, the inevitable result will be intolerable behavior by many in that society. I defy anyone to prove me wrong.

I believe the three most pressing issues with respect to the reformation of our criminal justice system are those relating to the U.S. Constitution, state criminal codes and the American penal system. The U.S. Constitution must be amended so that the Fifth Amendment's prohibition "that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" shall no longer apply once the state has commenced its case in chief. Once the state begins its prosecution, no defendant will be able to avoid answering for his actions. The second change relates to our state criminal codes. Each state must amend its criminal code to create a new classification of crime. This new classification of crime will transcend the traditional felony and misdemeanor classification. As for our misguided notions of incarceration, I assert the time has come for Americans to understand prisons are for dangerous predators and violent career criminals.

Finally, the reforms addressed below are not meant to be exhaustive. They are suggestions for debate at the Second Constitutional Convention.[[67]] The Second Constitutional Convention must begin its work somewhere, why not here? And the Second Constitutional Convention must begin with someone, why not you?

Crimes Against Society

Historically, crimes have been distinguished in only two ways. Some crimes are recognized as misdemeanors. Misdemeanors carry as punishment for their commission less than one-year confinement and/or a fine. These offenses were, by their very nature, less destructive to the individual and society. Then there are those crimes classified as felonies. Historically, certain crimes were classified as felonies because they were so destructive to society that one could be sentenced to death for committing them. I believe this oversimplified classification of crime belongs to a time when child pornography, child prostitution, rape and murder were not commonplace. Such a simplified bifurcation of crime has no place in a society where individual responsibility has all but ceased to exist.

The felony and misdemeanor characterization of crime had its root in the English common law so influential in our Founding Fathers’ day. The very notion that crimes could exist on the scale they do today could not have been imagined during the days our Founding Fathers lived. We must never forget that they fought and died because they believed taxation without representation robbed them of their inherent right to self-government. They risked everything to prevent taxation from destroying their concept of freedom. What do you think they would do if confronted with a society like the one we have created? What would they think of a society, of a people, that placed the rights of criminals before that of children?

It is absurd that our system of justice classifies the beating death of a five-year-old boy in the same way it does cheating the IRS. Only a perverted system could find comparison between the two. It is equally absurd to equate the brutal rape of a woman with the relatively petty crime of selling marijuana. Our current notions of crime and punishment belong to another age. The time has come for the American people to relegate these “notions of justice” to the age from which they came.

Society already recognizes that certain crimes are so heinous that the commission of such crimes constitutes not just crimes against the person, but crimes against us all. The time has come to compel our state legislators to embrace this idea by changing each state’s criminal code to reflect the true impact certain crimes have on society. Based upon the effects certain crimes have on victims, their families and the community a whole, each state shall impose the death penalty[[68]] for their commission. Crimes against society must include:

1. Premeditated murder

2. Forcible rape

3. Kidnapping or false imprisonment of any person for the purposes of sexual exploitation or monetary gain

4. Battering of a child under the age of sixteen accompanied by an intent to do serious bodily harm

The crimes delineated above are the core crimes that plague civilized society. Crimes for which there must be no second chance. Moreover, they are crimes committed by people who lack any semblance of morality. People who care nothing for their fellow man commit these crimes.

The idea that a single crime can affect more than just the victim is not a new concept. In 1945, the Allied Governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of France and the Soviet Union embarked upon a course of action in which thousands of individuals were tried, and many executed, for crimes against humanity. In effect, crimes against society are crimes against humanity. Of course, the monsters indicted at Nuremberg and Tokyo committed crimes on a grander scale. This was, however, only possible because they controlled two of the most industrious and disciplined peoples on earth. Had these criminals not been in control of governments, they would have gone unnoticed by history.

Whether a man kills one person or a thousand makes little difference to the family that looses a loved one to the evil that men do. Just as it makes little difference to the woman who was raped that her violator raped before, it should make no difference to society that the rapist has been found guilty of only one rape. I believe it is necessary to assume that those who commit crimes against society are not one-time offenders. It has been the philosophy of our current system of justice that maybe, just maybe, the rapist was a one-time offender and maybe, just maybe, he will not rape again. “Maybe” is no longer acceptable when our collective future is at stake. “Maybe” has no place in a society on the brink of destruction.

A single rape or a single murder affects society beyond the mere physical pain inflicted upon the victim and their loved ones. Although the victim should be our first and foremost concern, it is not. Today, the rights of the criminal are always placed before those of the victim and society. If you doubt this assertion, I urge you to go down to your local courthouse and watch as our system of justice bends over backwards to protect the rights of rapists and murderers.

When a child is raped and/or murdered, society as a whole suffers in ways we have not yet begun to understand. For example, we understand the vicious cycle of child abuse. We know that children that were abused often become abusers. However, it is in other more insidious ways that these heinous crimes affect society. Take for example the news story about the body of a child found naked in a ditch beside a freeway. As the average citizen listens to the story, he or she begins to realize, maybe for the first time, how frightening “modern” society has become. And because of this heinous crime, people begin to fear their neighbors. They draw away from society. They move out of established neighborhoods. They begin to care less and less about those they do not know and soon the murdered child found along the freeway is someone else’s problem. In short, society is transformed from one in which citizens care for each other to one in which fear and suspicion of each other is the norm. I believe this without reservation because I have seen it with my own eyes. The city of Detroit serves as an excellent example of how crime can drive a wedge between the races and ruin what was once an otherwise vibrant city of industry. The crime that ravages Detroit to this day is the single greatest reason why Detroit’s population declined from over two million to its present population of less than one million.

The truth is the death penalty has not been implemented in a way that deters crime for over one hundred years. In 1900, when a man raped a woman, no one ever doubted the value of the death penalty. The death penalty worked because criminals knew it would be implemented soon after judgment. Today, in a system as inefficient as ours, the fact that it takes decades to execute someone is proof positive the death penalty is not being implemented in a way that deters crime. If you are one that disagrees with this assertion, ask yourself if the murder or rape of a child is a crime so reprehensible and damaging to society that to punish the individual in any way other than to take his life tantamount to inviting others to commit the same crime? Is not the beating and rape of a woman a crime so vile that to imprison the rapist for a few short years tantamount to inviting him to rape her again. I assert any punishment other than the forfeiture of the perpetrator’s life only encourages others to violence against women and children.

Rethinking Our Ideas of Incarceration

In the process of reforming our criminal justice system, we must re-examine our philosophy regarding incarceration. Our present day concepts of incarceration do not originate from our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, they are the result of more recent experiences that produced the widespread belief that:

1. All criminals must be imprisoned,

2. All criminals can be rehabilitated and

3. Incarcerated criminals are entitled to privileges that many hard-working men and women cannot afford, such as a college education, cable TV and psychological counseling.

The time has come to re-examine our philosophy of incarceration precisely because these ideas have failed miserably. The pains our society endures to make criminals comfortable are nothing short of amazing.[[69]] The comforts shown criminals are unbelievable when one realizes the lack of life’s basic necessities so many children face every day. How is it that a child goes hungry in Detroit but a murderer gets three meals a day (all nutritionally balanced for optimum health), an exercise room, a library, cable TV and even a chance to make money?[[70]] Our prisons do not dispense punishment as in the penal system of our Founding Fathers. They are only shelters under which men and women wait release. American prisons accomplish only one objective: shelter for two million men and women. We shall return to the chaos that is America’s prison system after we have identified those that must never leave prison again.

Intelligent people argue that there are four goals to be accomplished through incarceration. These goals are deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation and punishment. These goals represent the old way of thinking about incarceration. I do not prescribe to such reasoning. The very idea that government should be guided by “goals” in determining whether or not a person should be incarcerated is absurd. We are not talking about economic development or the education of our children. We are talking about the responsibility of government to keep its citizens safe from the evil men that walk our streets. We must recognize that the only proper goal of incarceration should be maintaining order and discipline in society. This is the reason for government’s very existence. Only when the criminal fears the consequences of his actions will criminal behavior be curtailed. This is a fact that no study, poll or commission can change. Moreover, it is a lesson that history repeats to us over and over again. It is time we headed its lessons, especially when the only cost will be the freedom of men who prey upon the innocent.

Incapacitation is simply the removal of the criminal from society for a specified period of time. In other words, providing shelter, food, medical care, counseling, etc., etc., is what incapacitation is all about. It is not about rehabilitation. Rehabilitation someone incapable if it is a waste of valuable resources better spent on those with mental illness. There must be only one consideration when deciding to confine an individual and that is the net effect their incarceration will have on society. For sure, there is the immediate benefit of having the criminal off the street. For the depraved that live among us, this cannot occur fast enough. However, the question that must be asked and answered is whether or not the benefit of incarceration outweighs the costs of maintaining millions of prisoners; many of whom are enjoying comforts not previously enjoyed in their private lives.

The role incarceration played in America’s early days was minor because the men and women of early America believed that only by severely punishing criminals would others be deterred from committing the same acts of violence. In 1800, if a man raped a woman, he paid his debt to society with his life. If a man murdered another, he would pay his debt to society with his life. As harsh as it may seem, this is exactly the kind of punishment that deters rape and murder. This says nothing about the effect it would have on the cowards who prey upon children. If priests had actually feared the consequences of their actions, they would never have raped the thousands and thousands of boys we now know they raped. And if the American people think they can deter evil in a more lenient way, they are wrong.

We, as a society, must rethink our incarceration policies. We must realize that simply incarcerating someone for a short time accomplishes nothing. It accomplished nothing except the growth of government and a further waste of taxpayer dollars. Moreover, as our prisons become “revolving doors,” they continually allow the real threats to society the opportunity for early release. Therefore, it becomes necessary to look at incarceration from another perspective. What I am proposing is a radical step. Although it may be radical, radical action is the only way in society can regain the upper hand from crime.

The decision to incarcerate an individual is a drastic one. Once we make the decision to incarcerate, we must do so for an extended period of time, up to and including life. For example, if a person were guilty of physically injuring another human being with the intent to do serious bodily harm, that criminal should be sentenced to twenty years in prison. Under our new system of justice, the sentence could be suspended and the offender released. Before the issuance of the suspended sentence, however, the court would instruct the offender that the original sentence would be served without parole should he commit that or a more serious crime again. Should a defendant be convicted of selling narcotics twice, his or her sentence would include the time for the first conviction and the same amount or more time for the second offense. No more revolving doors for these criminals. If they cannot correct the error of their ways after being given a second chance, they do not deserve to live in civilized society.

Finally, I want to address the idea that government should implement an amnesty program in which individuals imprisoned for drug use would be released. Although radical, I agree with the reasoning behind this idea. I offer one statistical fact to prove the merit of such a program. Although African Americans account for approximately twelve percent of the U.S. population, they occupy four times that percentage in prisons and jails. Why? The reason is drugs.

If my prediction of four million men and women incarcerated in the year 2010 is accurate, the average American taxpayer will have to be taxed at the sixty percent rate simply to pay for the costs associated with an expansion of our penal system and the projected national debt of 10 trillion dollars. Moreover, since our prisons will be even more overcrowded, dangerous predators will do that much less time in prison before they are able to again prey upon women and children. And of course, the mentally ill will continue to call homeless shelters home. If today is a new day, let it be the first day we place the care of America’s mentally ill before that of America’s wicked.

The Right to Remain Silent

The existence of our improperly conceived notion of the right to remain silent has as much to do with how our society views individual responsibility as it does with the practical limitations inherent in law enforcement. If we are to return America to a nation where individual responsibility walks hand-in-hand with individual liberty, we must begin by declaring that liberty and freedom come with a price. The price is that no one has the right to remain silent once the state begins the judicial process of holding him responsible for his actions. Individual responsibility begins with the individual. We must never lose sight of the fact that individuals freely choose to commit crimes. They are responsible for their actions and the time has come for society to hold them accountable.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Fifth Amendment) reads:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand Jury indictment, except for cases arising on the land or naval Forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger, nor shall any person be subject to the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall he be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without due compensation.

The Fifth Amendment was written at a time when murder and sexual exploitation of children were not aspects of daily life. It was written during a time when society held citizens responsible for their actions. This is not the society in which we live today. Today, our society has become one of individuals pursuing greater freedoms while refusing any responsibility for their actions.

The days of rubber hose beatings and forced confessions are over despite what the race-baiters proclaim. Moreover, the defense lawyers that profit from our twisted system of justice will also deny this assertion. Nevertheless, the realities of the present day demonstrate how unlikely it is that the police would return to beating confessions out of suspects. The few, isolated incidences of police brutality in New York City and Los Angeles, for example, stand as proof that the days of rubber hoses are over. The media attention and the lawsuits that followed the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division scandal will cost the City of Los Angeles millions of dollars. Furthermore, the incidents of police brutality today involve arrest and/or apprehension, not confessions. If there is one fact preventing the police from obtaining forced confessions, it is the number of attorneys waiting to pounce at even a hint of police brutality. I believe that for each person beaten into confessing a crime, there would be at least one hundred lawyers ready and willing to represent him for the standard thirty-three percent fee arrangement.

Is it inconceivable that we should require a suspect charged with the kidnapping of a child to answer under oath where he was the night the child was abducted? Is it beyond our comprehension that a man charged with raping a woman be asked how it was that his semen was discovered in her vagina? Will it be the end of liberty and freedom in America if the people are permitted to ask a defendant charged with murdering a child how the child’s blood got into his car? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then you are partly responsible for what our society has become. You are a friend to the pedophile and the enemy of our children.

It seems only natural that when a man has the opportunity to either deny certain facts or explain the facts, he should do so. Only the guilty would shirk this opportunity. I believe this urge to explain one’s innocence even more compelling when one is accused of serious wrongdoing. I believe it is instinctive that when a man is accused of a heinous crime like rape, he would want to announce to the world his innocence. Today, our system of justice holds as gospel that no man can be compelled to be a witness against himself. In fact, if a prosecutor were to even hint at the fact that an accused sat silent, the accused, no matter how depraved, would walk free. For a Prosecutor to argue that the accused’s silence at trial speaks volumes as to his guilt is evidence a jury should be entitled to consider.

The idea that a person would want to explain his innocence comes from the very basic observation that when an innocent person is accused of some wrongdoing, he instinctively seeks to denounce the accusation and declare his innocence. The person that says nothing after being accused of some wrongdoing is the one that arouses our suspicion. Is it not also equally logical that when a man refuses to rebut evidence that clearly demonstrates his guilt, the prosecutor should be allowed to argue to the jury or judge that the defendant's reason for not rebutting the state's evidence is because the defendant is guilty? It seems that our system of justice no longer cares about the truth. Our system of justice cares only about the defendant and his rights. I have always maintained that if you are searching for the truth, the last place you should look is in a courtroom. Former President Clinton is living testimony to this observation.

The origins of the right against self-incrimination emerged at a time when an accused's most valuable right was not his right to remain silent, but his right to be heard. When an accused was not afforded the assistance of counsel, he had to speak in order to refute the charges brought against him. This type of trial is more easily understood as the “accused speaks” trial.[[71]] This is very different from what occurs today. A quote from A Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown by Sergeant William Hawkins is as relevant today as it was in the 18^th century:

The defendant needs no counsel, because if the defendant is innocent he will be as effective as any lawyer... however, the very speech, gesture, and countenance, and a manner of response of those who are guilty, when they speak for themselves, may often help to disclose the truth, which would not so well be discovered from the artificial defense of others speaking for them.[[72]]

It appears, at least from a historical perspective, that the search for the truth outweighed even an accused’s right to counsel let alone his right to remain silent. Today, society would never stand for such an idea. The right to counsel should not be a barrier to the discovery of truth. However, the same cannot be said for an accused’s right to remain silent. When an accused is the best and sometimes only source of the truth, the right to remain silent is the ultimate barrier to the discovery of the truth. With respect to career criminals, there is truth to the old saying “practice makes perfect.”

Lawyers acting as defense counsel have distorted these very basic tenets of life. Rather than allow the state to ask the accused where he was on the day a crime was committed, lawyers have successfully twisted the wording of the U.S. Constitution so that the courts believe such an inquiry is forbidden. This is not what the Founding Fathers intended.

What then was the intention of the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Fifth Amendment? I believe their intention was to prevent a strong central government, one beyond the reach of the states, from torturing or physically extracting confessions from suspects. I believe the Founding Fathers knew the power they were giving to the federal government was such that it was open to abuse. They had just defeated a tyrant whose officers had in fact tortured confessions from them. This is why the Founding Fathers wrote the trial rights cluster contained in the Bill of Rights.

I offer as an example of the Fifth Amendment in action in our state courts, a perverted example of how the right to remain silent protects the guilty by hiding the truth. Baltimore Department of Social Services v. Bouknight 493 U.S. 549, 110 S. Ct. 900 (1990), presents a clear picture of how the Fifth Amendment has been turned on its head. The city of Baltimore took Ms. Bouknight’s three-month old child from her because of suspicion of child abuse. The state of Maryland determined that the child was in need of assistance because it believed the child was being abused. Nevertheless, the child was returned to the custody of Ms. Bouknight. After eight months, the Department of Social Services requested that Ms. Bouknight produce the child to the Department of Social Services for examination. Ms. Bouknight refused. A thorough search for the child by both the local police and the child’s relatives was conducted, but the boy was never found.

When the juvenile court ordered Ms. Bouknight to produce the boy, she claimed that to produce the child would be a violation of her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The Maryland Court of Appeals upheld her right to silence although the life of a child was at stake. It was not until many years later that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Maryland court. Although she was held in contempt of court for seven years, she was never made to answer for her crimes. Ms. Bouknight’s right to remain silent took precedence over the safety and well being of a child. Moreover, the fact that Ms. Bouknight was never forced to answer for the child’s whereabouts allowed her to escape justice, as the boy was never found.

What would Mr. Madison say about this perversion of his words? How would he respond when told that this woman is free today? He would say that the discovery of the truth is no longer the objective of our system of justice. The truth has become an obstacle to the liberty of the guilty. As for what Mr. Madison would do, I believe I am doing just what he would have done if he were in my shoes.

I began putting these words to paper during the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Therefore, I would like to take a few paragraphs to discuss the importance our Founding Fathers and Judeo-Christian heritage place on telling the truth when testifying.[[81]] A distinction has always been made between sworn and unsworn testimony. The weight given to sworn testimony is infinitely greater because the individual swears before God and his fellow citizens that he is telling the truth. This oath was not simply meant to invoke God. It was meant to alert all those involved that the swearing party was placing his honor and reputation on the line.

An unsworn statement was useless in the presentation of evidence at trial because an unsworn statement had almost no value. It was used as a means to discover other information, very much like the discovery phase in the civil setting today. The oath requisite of a sworn statement was something sacred. The declarant took the affirmative act of swearing before God and the members of his community that what he said was true. I have no doubt that the Founding Fathers would have regarded perjury as a high crime. Yet, the spin masters of the Clinton Administration (and many in Congress) want the American people to believe that perjury is only a minor transgression when committed to hide adultery. The Clinton-Lewinsky affair is another example of how our political leaders play with the truth to avoid accepting responsibility for their actions.

When James Madison wrote the clause “nor shall be compelled to be a witness against himself,” he did not leave us with any explanation as to the circumstances in which an accused could not be a witness against himself. Adding to this uncertainty, no other Founding Father left us with an explanation as to when or at what stage of the criminal trial process this right not to be a witness against oneself applied. We know, however, that the Founding Fathers intended for the “trial rights cluster” to apply to the federal government and not the states. If we look at the American criminal justice process in colonial America, we find that the right to remain silent did not apply to state criminal proceedings.

Why is it that no Founding Father wrote about what our system of justice now regards as being so sacred a right? I believe the reason is obvious: they never intended the Fifth Amendment to be applied as a shield in state criminal proceedings. Since we have no legislative history to enlighten us, all we can do at this point is sift through the historical facts as they developed. The best evidence to support the contention that the Fifth Amendment was not intended to be a shield behind which the guilty could hide is found in the practice of Justices of the Peace during and after the American Revolution. The Justice of the Peace was usually a layperson and therefore not trained in the law. It was his responsibility to gather the evidence and submit it to the state for trial. Precisely because they were laymen, Justices of the Peace required guidance. Such guidance was provided in Justice of the Peace Manuals. Within these Manuals, the “compelled examination” of the accused was authorized. The important distinction from today’s concept of compulsory examination was that this colonial era compulsory examination was unsworn.

For approximately the first thirty years after America's founding, the practice of the Justices of the Peace did not change, although the Fifth Amendment had been enacted. The accused was still called as a witness at trial. Henry Hitchcock's Alabama Justice of the Peace Manual of 1822[[82]] does not cite to the U.S. Constitution as support for the idea that an accused cannot be a witness against himself. Following the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it was understood that that the U.S. Constitution did not apply to the states. In fact, this assumption was so widely understood that no one ever debated the issue. It was common knowledge. And although this was understood to be the case for the first 125 years of our nation’s existence, it is not the case today. Although such a belief may have been held in the past, I will not belabor the point. What is important to note is that such a belief strengthens my earlier contention that the Founding Fathers were primarily afraid of the federal government’s potential for abuse. They feared the federal government’s ability to trample the rights of the states more than they feared the state’s ability to trample the rights of its citizens. They were indeed wise men.

The Founding Fathers did not intend for the right against self-incrimination to apply to state criminal proceedings. The Founding Fathers knew the people could more easily alter or abolish their state governments should it torture or beat its citizens into confessing, than they could a national government, sitting hundreds of miles away with a strong Army. This is logical. The Founding Fathers just defeated a tyrant that tortured and murdered good men in the name of a central government. They knew how difficult it was to defeat a strong central government. They wanted to make sure the authority granted the federal government under the U.S. Constitution would not be used to abuse the people. This is precisely why the federal government is a government of limited powers. Therefore, I believe it follows that since the federal government is a government of limited powers, the Founding Fathers never intended the federal government to trump the states as protector of the people. This was the primary responsibility of each state.

I believe the Founding Fathers did not envision that the restrictions contained in the Bill of Rights would be applied to the states. The Founding Fathers were very clear that the U.S. Constitution was a document created to guide men in the operation of a central government. I believe the very reason they made the Tenth Amendment the last Amendment of the Bill of Rights was so that the people would never forget that the states were the primary governmental bodies in the new Republic - not the federal government. I invite anyone to prove me wrong.

The U.S. Constitution is a living document. Men who understood that their words were open to interpretation wrote it. They believed future generations of Americans would change the U.S. Constitution so that it addressed the problems of their day. We should not look at the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights today without remembering that the Founding Fathers legitimately feared that this new idea in government, called federalism, could become a tyrant just like the one they fought and died to abolish. I assert that for the Supreme Court to rule that the Fifth Amendment must apply to all state criminal proceedings is to apply the thoughts and words of the Founding Fathers out of context. Furthermore, it is in direct contrast to the facts of that era. If the Founding Fathers wanted to prevent the states from calling an accused to the stand, they were intelligent enough to have articulated such a concern in clear and concise language. I think it is clear from studying history that the Founding Fathers were intelligent enough to recognize when and how to articulate such a clearly held conviction, especially one so essential as the maintenance of public safety.

Even if the above analysis does not convince you that the Founding Fathers never intended the Fifth Amendment to be such a shield in state criminal proceedings, there are two more compelling reasons to abandon this “notion” of due process. The first reason relates to the necessity of returning individual responsibility as the order of the day. The second relates to the realities of present-day America as opposed to that of Revolutionary America. The state of our society today is such that to continue to place the interests of criminals over those of society will result in the end of America. If we, as a society, continue to demand greater liberties at the sake of greater responsibilities, the end result will find America falling from grace. Remember, when responsibility vanishes from a society, the disappearance of liberty is not far behind. The second reason why we must end this right to silence is that when the words used in the Fifth Amendment are interpreted in light of the times in which they were written, it becomes clear that the Founding Fathers never intended the Fifth Amendment to be a shield behind which an accused could hide the truth. I assert that the word “compelled” had a very different meaning to our Founding Fathers than it has today. History is clear on the subject of the Crown’s ruthless and barbaric treatment of colonial dissent. Men who voiced their objections to the Crown’s decisions on subjects ranging from taxation to trade were tortured and murdered.

When the Founding Fathers drafted, debated and adopted the Fifth Amendment they did so with visions of King George’s soldiers at work. To them, the word compelled had a very different meaning - one I believe to be very different from that which we accord the word today. To our Founding Fathers, the word compelled would translate today into physical force. To them, compelled was synonymous with physical coercion. I believe this because it makes sense. We cannot take their thoughts and ideas out of context. If we do, the result will be a distortion of history and the truth.

I believe the questions are simple. Should an accused have the right to remain silent at all times during the criminal process? And if an accused remains silent, can the prosecutor argue that a negative inference should be drawn from that silence? I believe the Founding Fathers never intended criminals to have a right to remain silent. Rather, I believe the self-incrimination clause was intended to safeguard against improper methods of obtaining information from suspects. Answering for ones actions was not a form of compulsion to our Founding Fathers. Answering for ones actions were a sign of individual responsibility and individual responsibility is the best evidence I can present to persuade the reader that the right to remain silent is a perversion of the U.S. Constitution. Individual responsibility abhors silence and so does the search for truth.

4 The Times They Are A Changin’

Failure is not an option.

Susan B. Anthony

I know in my heart the American people are sick and tired of a criminal justice system that no longer protects them. I also know that they are disgusted by the politics of Washington D.C. The American people have expressed to their politicians repeatedly that they want criminals punished and government reformed, but their cries fall on deaf ears. The question is why. The answer is that a political system that only cares to perpetuate itself by maintaining the status quo does not care to listen. Therefore, the American people must turn up the volume and intensity of public opinion and they must do so before it is too late.

Abraham Lincoln said, “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed; consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.” We, the enabled,[[83]] must mold public opinion. We cannot allow the pollsters and the spin-doctors mold public opinion. It must be you and I that adjust our nation’s moral compass because the less educated, less fortunate among us will never be able to effect the change necessary to make things right.

It is time for Americans to realize party politics will not solve problems that will soon be national disasters. I realize this will not be easy. We are up against a foe more powerful than anything the American people have ever faced. This foe has developed over the last forty years to become a most formidable enemy. In fact, this foe is not physical in form. It is a combination of two separate and distinct forces. On the one hand there are the career politicians and the faceless, nameless bureaucrats that work to preserve the status quo by using government to serve their interests. On the other hand there are the single-issue voters, referred to as “Not In My Back Yard” voters or NIMBYs, because they care only to change the status quo when it benefits them directly. NIMBYs care more about the development project blocking their view than about abused women and children. And when career politicians combine with NIMBY voters, the result is government by special interest, otherwise known as the federal government.

The emergence of the single-issue voter is, in my opinion, the result of the apathy the American people have for government. Having grown disillusioned by the corruption and greed in Washington D.C., these single-issue voters concentrate only on the issue that directly affects them without any regard for what is best for the nation or their state. As for issues that may transcend their petty lives, these issues are passed off as unimportant and therefore not worth their time or energy. Complacency for the plight of others has become fashionable in the world of the NIMBY voter. Their world is one filled with greed and indifference. The combination of these two forces has grown so powerful over the past forty years that only a concerted effort on our part will defeat this enemy. If we, the enabled, do not act as one, we will never adjust our moral compass thereby failing to preserve and protect our children's future. Should we fail to defeat this enemy, it will destroy our once great nation. This is why our movement must succeed.

As I began to search for the answers to my questions, I slowly began to realize that it was more than just our criminal justice system that needed reformation. Our entire society was in need of reform. It was at this time that I finally understand that at the core of this decay was the complete failure of our criminal justice system to bring order and responsibility to society. In short, the criminal had gained the upper hand because of a few people who believe the criminal is a victim. And it was this failure that began a chain reaction that has culminated in the abandonment of individual responsibility all across America. We have created a society where lawsuits filed by the millions determine who is responsible for the actions of others. Yet, we cannot hope to change the criminal justice system without changing the other aspects of government also in desperate need of repair. Since the criminal justice system is the governmental vehicle for the maintenance of public safety, it cannot be changed unless government as a whole is changed. Although the criminal justice system is the most dysfunctional of our governmental institutions, that alone does not mandate its immediate reformation. Its role as protector of our children, and hence the future, creates the immediacy for its correction.

The Founding Fathers understood that each state's primary responsibility was to protect the health and safety of its citizens. In fact, the Founding Fathers believed this job to be so important that they left it to the states, not the federal government, to effectuate. Yet, it has been the federal government that has taken upon itself the task of providing for the health and safety of the citizens of each state. It seized this opportunity to expand into every facet of our lives because career politicians believed it politically correct to do so. And since they had unlimited access to federal dollars, they expanded the scope of the Department of Justice in order to help victims of violent crime and stop violent crime. The federal government was not created to perform such a task. Moreover, it is incapable of performing such a task. When the federal government exercises authority in an area of our national existence that is outside the expressed powers granted it under the U.S. Constitution, the result is usually both an exacerbation of the problem and the wasting of billions of taxpayer dollars. The Founding Fathers may not have been perfect, but they were intelligent men who knew the dangers and limitations of an all-powerful central government. We must not forget that it was the excesses of centralized government that compelled our Founding Fathers to take destiny into their own capable hands.

The requirement of government to keep order has as its foundation the core obligation that government protect its citizens from the evil that men do. This duty must be the responsibility of each state. Why? Each citizen is the resident of a state. The state is where the crime occurs. And, of course, the state is where the effects of the crime are felt. It is time our enlightened society takes into account the effect crimes like rape have on women, children and those who love them. When a child knows that its mother has been raped, its anger knows no bounds.

The greatest opposition we will encounter in reforming the federal government and our criminal justice system will be the campaign politicians and federal bureaucrats will wage to stop any true reformation of government. It will be those with the most money to loose, should an effective and efficient federal government be created, that will fight the hardest. It will be those that fill their pockets at the Federal Reserve that will fight to prevent any change to the federal government’s decades long campaign of debt accumulation. They will fight any meaningful reformation because it will bring about an end to their power and privilege. History tells us that career politicians covet power, privilege and, above all, the certainty that nothing will change the status quo. As for bankers like those that manipulate the Federal Reserve System and us, they will never endorse change because change threatens their access to the levers of government.

James Madison has been called the father of the U.S. Constitution. I believe this to be an accurate statement. I also believe James Madison knew something about managing government. He played an integral part in overthrowing a central government that abused its people by failing to address the grievances brought before it. Because of this fact, I give great credence to the words he spoke on the subject: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this; you must first enable the government to control the governed; in the next place oblige it to control itself.” The essence of government is power. And it was the abuse of this power by men of government that the Founding Fathers most feared. I have seen these men abuse their power and it is frightening.

American history tells us that at the time of the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers never feared that government would fail to control the governed. I believe it was beyond their capacity to envision child pornography, crack cocaine, children killing children, millions of women raped and a few other twisted and perverted “privileges” that distinguish American society. The Founding Fathers did, however, fear the federal government’s ability to control itself. In this prescient fear we find the answer to so many problems. It was this fear, more than any other fear that motivated the Founding Fathers to expressly enumerate the powers granted the federal government thereby limiting its authority. In this way, the Founding Fathers believed they had preserved the states as the primary governing bodies in the new Republic called the United States of America. They thought they had created a document that would stop the centralization of power into the hands of the few, as was the case with the Crown. However, they never considered the NIMBY voter and their impact on the political process.

Politicians today are not capable of reforming the federal government because it would be directly inimical to those special interests that fill their coffers. The fact is many politicians, especially those in office for ten years or more, are only skilled in one task: securing reelection.[[86]] As for those recently elected politicians, like Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton, are so beholden to pollsters that to offer an original thought is far too risky. She has not had an original idea since she tried to socialize medicine under the guise of federal absolutism.

For those that doubt the power of those that conduct and/or manipulate polls, I ask how these pollsters became the power brokers they are today. Polls should not be what formulate foreign or domestic policy. The personal beliefs and convictions of men and women voted into office should formulate policy. Polls do not make effective policy decisions. Only informed people can make such decisions. It is absurd to think that the ill-informed opinions of the common man, lacking any real knowledge about international relations or national security, should form the basis of domestic or foreign policy simply because he or she answers a question posed by a pollster. To think that the average American, already overburdened by the trials and tribulations of every day life in a society turned up-side down, has the requisite information to make a decision such as whether NATO should re-open its bombing offensive against Serbia is ridiculous. Polls are just tools used by those who want the status quo preserved at all costs.

Why then do politicians replace personal convictions with poll results? The answer is simple. They want to appear as if they are in “step” with the American people. It does not matter if their decision is wrong or even disastrous. It only matters that they appear in tune with the American people. This is the very reason why polls have worked to destroy the decision making process within the federal government by requiring that every decision be “run” through the pollsters for an early read. The question the American people need answered is: Who pays the pollsters that dictate the actions of our politicians? The answer to that question will reveal the true motive of the pollsters: convince the American people that they are involved in the decision making process within government.

The pollsters of today are just spin-doctors by another name. They conduct polls and expect the public to believe that the results reflect the will of the American people. I reject every poll as being another way in which special interests get their message across. There is room for only one true poll and that is the one conducted at the ballot box. When the American people set their hearts and minds to a task, nothing is beyond their grasp. Provided of course that they are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to make things right, to save what so many have fought and died to preserve. To this end, we must begin a grass roots movement unlike anything seen in this country since the abolition of slavery. Our movement will have as its focus the creation of a society that demands a new kind of government. We demand a government that is responsive and accountable to the people.

A Changing Society

We are living in the Age of Technology. Since August 1945, we have witnessed the atomic age give way to the space age, which in turn gave way to the computer age. Now, the computer age is giving way to the information age. Yet, the atomic and computer ages have not vanished. Other ages have simply succeeded them. They are layered, in a cumulative fashion, one upon the other. This is the very nature of the Age of Technology and what we must understand about this new world order is the danger it presents. What makes technology so dangerous is its all-encompassing impact on our lives. This ever-present application of technology constitutes a threat to our collective existence.

Technology plays a major role in the life of everyone on the planet. Power stations in the Sudan, hydroelectric projects in China, solar projects in Norway, transportation projects in Germany and space programs in California, our dependence on technology grows greater every day. Whether it is the husband that works from home while home schooling his children or the sick Korean child saved by the medical advancements in nutrition, technology has made our lives better. However, I believe that from 1850 to 2000 technology did make life better, but after 2000, it began to control our lives. This is something altogether different. What more proof do we need than the fact that technology now enables man to create life using only a woman? I can think of no greater perversion than to clone a species while hundreds of millions of the same species suffer from malnutrition, lack safe drinking water and live in constant fear of war.

Before the Age of Technology, society has always had time to adapt to the problems that confronted it. The Age of Technology does not afford such luxuries. The Age of Technology has created problems unimaginable a few short years ago. When a problem surfaces today, the dangerous or harmful effects occur so quickly that society has little time to understand the problem and respond in a positive fashion. An example of this phenomenon is the proliferation of child pornography on the Internet. As for non-criminal behavior, cloning offers an example of the moral and scientific dilemmas facing us today.

I believe the past one hundred years have witnessed more fundamental changes in man’s daily life than that experienced by all past generations combined. It is, nevertheless, only the beginning. I believe that the next fifty years will see more change in man’s daily life than that which occurred over the last hundred. I also believe that if this prediction does not come to true, it will only be because Mother Earth will have adjusted our moral compass for us. If you believe Earth incapable of responding to the dangers threatening her, you underestimate her. She will not allow us to destroy her. She will defend herself. Who else can so quickly mutate a virus, erase ancient cities with a shiver and kill thousands with her winds, rain and fire.

As we enter the 21^st century, we can be sure of one thing: change will continue to occur at an ever-accelerating pace. In adapting to these rapid changes, society must come to understand that the old ways of problem solving will not suffice in the face of our brave new world. Current methods of solving the myriad of social, economic and environmental problems facing America will not be effective in addressing the new problems surfacing in the 21^st century. A perfect example is the depravity of the crimes committed by children. What was once thought to be the sole provenance of adults has now become child’s play. Another illustrative example is the ever-increasing number of mentally ill, homeless and otherwise downtrodden souls that walk the streets of our major cities. We, the enabled, cannot simply turn our backs on these lost souls. We must rethink public assistance so that it is responsive to the needs of those who “need” assistance as opposed to those entitled to assistance. These problems are not going to disappear or even improve unless drastic action is taken; action our current federal government is incapable of performing.

Historically, the people have relied primarily upon government intervention to solve the pervasive societal problems of the day. Our willingness to rely upon government was due, in most part, to the fact that government was the only entity possessing adequate resources to address such problems. This is no longer the case. Every day in America, other organizations, private and non‑governmental, resolve problems that yesterday would have been considered the sole province of government. Home schooling and neighborhood policing are two of my favorite examples of what people can do when they are motivated to change the status quo. It is this new way of thinking, this recognition of alternative resources for resolving society’s ills, which must rule the day. It was men and women and not government that changed how we, as a society, treat drunk driving. In the same vein, it was the actions of men and women that stopped the madness in Vietnam. And so too shall it be men and women, like us, that will shout to the world that the time has come to make America right!

The purpose of this chapter is not to analyze every facet of society in order to identify each area that is changing and/or in need of change. Examining every facet of a broken society is beyond my capabilities. This chapter is intended to alert the American people to the gravity of our collective situation. Should our economy slow (I believe it will after 105 consecutive months of expansion),[[87]] the problems that plague society will be exacerbated. More importantly, the resources to cure such ailments will have evaporated while the problems become far worse than those that currently affect us. While I have never professed to be an economist, I have been awarded three academic degrees. Unfortunately, I am no expert in the “dismal science.” However, as an astute observer of our times, I believe I can point out those areas of our economy, and hence society, being transformed by the Age of Technology.

I read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, just as many young college students do, seeking to understand the mechanics of our economy. Rather than provide an analysis of Mr. Smith's work, I will simply comment that Wealth of Nations is as valuable a source for the study of colonial times and the emergence of capitalism as it is a guide to understanding modern economic forces. From a historical perspective, it is fascinating. As for its insight into economics, I believe it has served economists well for over two hundred years. However, I believe the Age of Technology has made many of Mr. Smith's ideas no longer applicable, especially those ideas relating to labor and capital. Although I believe the greatest changes to society are occurring in the area of labor, I will first address the changes relating to capital (finance) because once this change is understood, the issues surrounding labor are more easily understood.

In the pursuit of my LL.M. at The George Washington University, I studied the origins and workings of the International Monetary Fund. I understand the thinking and reasoning behind their creation just as I believe in the necessity of at least trying to manage the world economy. However, it was reading newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times that I gained an understanding of our new global economy. Or more precisely, it is from reading these newspapers that I came to understand the role financial markets play in our global economy. And it is within the financial world that we find one of the greatest changes made possible by the Age of Technology.

The changes that have occurred in the past few decades have altered the very nature of venture capital. In the 1970s, a company could not hope to receive the venture capital its directors believed was necessary to expand operations until that company had a solid record of earnings. It was simply a fact of life on Wall Street that without proven earnings, the capital necessary for a merger, acquisition and/or takeover would not be available. This was a hard and fast rule of finance. Yet, the past few years we have witnessed start-up companies with little or no proven record of earnings generating huge sums of venture capital through their Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). The Age of Technology made this possible.

In the 1980s, junk bond-induced takeovers and mergers were all the rage. Venture capital was becoming easier to obtain, as the venture capitalists could now be found all across America. John and Jane Q. Public were they new venture capitalists. Online trading, accessible wealth and an informed investor create a new market place that no Wall Street investment banker could possibly have predicted. The Age of Technology is changing all the rules, at least for some of us. Unfortunately, the truth is that only a small percentage of Americans invest. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not invest at all. They do not invest because they do not have the money to invest. These Americans are or will soon be affected by the Age of Technology because they will find it very difficult to make the transition to the next age, whatever that age may be.

The above reference to finance is provided so the reader might understand how technology is beginning to dominate our lives. Yet, when compared to the changes occurring in the area of labor, the changes occurring in capital markets pails in comparison. The greatest change the Age of Technology has nothing to do with financial markets or the stock market. The most significant change to the economy has been the transformation of labor. The Age of Technology is changing all the rules and labor is suffering.

For over 2,000 years, the physical force it took to perform a task measured labor. In other words, manual labor was just that, the sweat off a man or woman’s brow (or in many parts of our civilized world, the sweat of a child’s brow). Of course, there were artisans and tradesmen whose labor was "special" and therefore received more for their effort. To the overwhelming majority of laborers, it made little difference what a person did because physical exertion and time measured labor. This fact of life is changing and changing fast.

The labor of tomorrow will be that which can be excised from our heads. It is not the sweat off a man’s brow, but the knowledge and technical skills one possesses that will constitute labor for many. In today’s information age, what you know is more valuable than what you can lift – an Orwellian prospect for the disadvantaged and downtrodden among us. Moreover, when the information age gives way to the next age, just as the atomic age gave way to the computer age, only those who have mastered the information age will enjoy the benefits of the next age. Darwin’s simplistic “survival of the fittest” applies in 21^st century America just as it did in 19^th century England. There is evidence of this everywhere. We see it in the job market. We see it in the stock market. We see it in our schools. A new age of “labor” is dawning and it is dawning fast. And that is why we must understand that the success or failure of nations in the next century will depend upon both the education and level of individual responsibility its citizens possess. A nation dominated by highly educated and responsible citizens will be the most prosperous if only because with education comes responsibility. Was it not once the goal of America’s educational system to create educated citizens that accepted responsibility for their actions? Therefore, education must be a high priority for America as we enter the 21^st century. Unfortunately, despite the lip service and stale rhetoric put forth by our politicians regarding education, it is not a high priority today. The Department of Education is living proof of this assertion.

A second and equally important manner in which the Age of Technology is changing labor is found in the fact that more and more Americans are depending on their money to work for them, as opposed to them for it. In short, capital is becoming labor. Of course, this has always been the case for the wealthy. Today, however, more Americans, whether through hard work, inheritance, double incomes, or just savvy investments, are living this reality. And it is for this reason that we, the enabled, must see to the reformation of the federal government because it will allow us to invest that capital into emerging markets, new and smarter technologies, our children’s education or a myriad of other public projects that will benefit our nation in the years to come. In short, relief from repressive taxation will provide the additional capital necessary to solve many of our most pressing problems.

Because of this recently widespread accessibility to wealth, we must take greater care in guarding our markets. Healthy U.S. markets are our best defense against economic recessions and our most lethal weapon in any trade war. Trade wars are not the figment of some writer’s imagination. They are upon us and they will not be bloodless. Nevertheless, we should not fear these trade wars. As long as our economy is strong and our markets valued worldwide, we will win these wars as we have other wars. However, the key to our economic prosperity is this: as long as the world requires access to our markets, we shall prosper. This is one reason why the economy has been so robust and our markets so “bullish.” No better evidence exists to support this assertion than the trade deficit America currently endures.

The Department of Commerce reported on September 21, 1999 that the U.S. trade deficit was a record $25.2 billion for the month of July 1999.[[88]] This record was preceded by the June 1999 deficit of $24.6 billion, also a record. Twenty years ago, economists would have argued that for these deficits to exist, America would have to be in an unimaginably sorry economic state. Yet, America is more prosperous now than ever before. Or are we? The ballooning trade deficit is proof of the transformation of our economy. With that said, let us together reform the federal government so that it is returned to the limited government our Founding Fathers envisioned.

The Second Constitutional Convention

In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote that each generation should revise the Constitution to ensure its responsiveness to modern conditions. As of the year 2000, the American people have failed to heed this wise man’s advice. The time has come for America’s Second Constitutional Convention.

Thomas Jefferson drew upon the Virginia Declaration of Rights when he wrote the opening paragraphs to the U.S. Constitution. Section 3 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights states:

That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, community: of all the various modes and forms of government, that is the best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectual secede against the danger of poor administration. And that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community has an indubitable, inalienable, and indefensible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such a manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.

Amending the U.S. Constitution can be done in only two ways: through the legislative branches of government, i.e. the First Amendment, or through the American peoples' inherent and inalienable right to alter or abolish their government, i.e. the Second Amendment. The Founding Fathers provided us with the tools to exercise these inherent and inalienable rights. Just as George Washington risked everything, including his life, so too must we risk everything, including our lives, if we are to save what so many have fought and died to preserve. I know that this will be difficult. Many of you will make great sacrifices - sacrifices just like those made by General Washington and his troops some 225 years ago. It was with these sacrifices in mind that I spent many an hour sitting on the back porch of General Washington's home wondering in amazement at the courage and bravery displayed by the common soldiers of his common army. And when I left his home, I always wondered from which tree at Mount Vernon King George III would have hung General Washington.

The U.S. Constitution was created to provide a framework upon which a republican form of government could be established; a framework that the Founding Fathers designed to be altered or amended to adjust to a changing society. Moreover, the Founding Fathers understood that if merely altering or amending the U.S. Constitution was insufficient to address the problems of the day, then the people had an inalienable right to abolish their government. The U.S. Constitution was not written so the federal government could usurp the authority of the states. And anyone who argues otherwise is someone whose interests lie in preserving big government and its constant intrusion into our lives.

The Founding Fathers knew that economic, social and political changes were inevitable. They understood that if the U.S. Constitution was to serve as the foundation upon which government operated, it too must be susceptible to change. This is why they clearly delineated the procedures for future amendments. In fact, the Founding Fathers were very specific as to how this could occur. Article V of the U.S. Constitution reads in part as follows:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution. Or, on the application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by Congress.

In drafting Article V of the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers provided the “people” with the right and the ability to change the U.S. Constitution without the approval of our esteemed members of Congress. I believe they did this because they knew one day the federal government might come to dominate the states and the people that live in them. The Founding Fathers provided the people with a way to change their government without having to resort to armed insurrection. Nevertheless, should the federal government prevent the people from amending the U.S. Constitution, the only option left to the people will be the one exercised by our Founding Fathers. This revolution, however, will make the First American Revolution and the Second American Revolution (Civil War) look like child’s play. The weapons of today are far more lethal than the muskets and artillery of yesterday. The weapons of the next revolution will be weapons of mass destruction. For this reason alone, we must use every means at our disposal to ensure that the Third American Revolution is a peaceful one.

History shows that constitutional changes come in waves. This observation holds true not just in America, but around the world as well. Our First Constitutional Convention occurred in 1787. The people of France underwent a similar constitutional revolution only a few short years later. Another such constitutional wave occurred in the middle of the 19^th century. The year 1848 will always be remembered as the year of revolution across much of Europe. In America, a mere twelve years later (1860), an upheaval occurred that transformed our country forever.[[89]] This upheaval brought with it the most significant Constitutional changes in our nation’s history. I am, of course, referring to the Civil War and the Constitutional Amendments that followed that conflagration. Similarly, the 1930s saw a wave of constitutional change both here and in Europe because of the political and economic disasters occurring in the first two decades of the 20^th century. It was the Great War and the economic disasters of the late 1920s that prompted this wave.

I believe the American people can again lead the world in another wave of constitutional change. This wave, however, will not be prompted by economic disaster (although it could) nor will it be prompted by war (although it might). What I hope will prompt this wave of constitutional reform will be man’s realization that government is not the solution to the problems facing him, but rather is responsible for many of them.

The Second Constitutional Convention must focus on two separate and distinct areas of our national existence. The first area entails amending the U.S. Constitution. These amendments will affect two distinct areas of our national existence: the federal government and the criminal justice system. The first amendments will address the reformation and reduction of the federal government. This must be the beginning of any true reformation if only because it will free up billions of dollars needed to address America’s most pressing problems. The second type of amendments will entail the reformation of the criminal justice system. It is imperative that we reform these two areas of our national existence. They represent the starting point for the adjustment of our nation’s moral compass.

The second area of our national existence that must be addressed at the Second Constitutional Convention entails plans of action to address the serious problems government claimed it would solve but has in fact failed to solve. These problems include, for example, exploring new methods of campaign finance, saving Social Security and Medicare and rebuilding the infrastructure of America’s great cities. Health care and education are two more areas to be debated at our national existence to be reformed at the Second Constitutional Convention. These plans of action will be the result of intense debate by the very people whose lives are affected by such action. It will be the citizen-delegates to the Second Constitutional Convention who will provide the solutions to the problems our federal legislators have proven incapable of resolving. The question is why are they incapable of resolving these problems. The answer is found within the very bureaucracy that strangles even the best-intentioned federal programs.

The Founding Fathers believed that they had to draft the U.S. Constitution in such a way as to prevent the federal government from dominating the states. I believe this very concern prompted them in 1791 to amend the U.S. Constitution by adding a bill of rights. Shortly after ratifying the U.S. Constitution, the Founding Fathers believed amendments to the newly ratified U.S. Constitution were necessary. Had society changed that much in so short a time? The answer is no. What had changed was their fear of a repressive central government. They realized that additional safeguards were needed if they were to prevent the federal government from usurping the authority of the states. I assert the times have sufficiently changed to warrant a few safeguards of our own.

The Bill of Rights is not just the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. They are the legal guarantee that the federal government would not use its extraordinary powers under the U.S. Constitution to dominate the states. Unfortunately, I do not believe the Founding Fathers envisioned the greedy career politicians, power hungry bureaucrats and the myriad of foreign interests currently manipulating the federal government at every turn. They certainly could not have imagined a government that disregards the law whenever it is politically expedient.

I believe the Founding Fathers saw these new “federal” legislators as men that would come to Washington D.C. only after they had made something of themselves in their respective communities. The Founding Fathers envisioned that these new federal legislators would be men who would serve one, two or maybe three terms before returning to their respective communities to retire. The Founding Fathers were men who were intimately involved in their communities and proud to serve them. More importantly, they wanted to represent their communities so when they returned, they could share their experiences with those they represented. This is not what happens today. Today, our esteemed members of Congress arrive in Washington D.C. with the intention of making Congress a career. They have no desire to return to their communities because as national figures, they are above the simple people they represent.

The Founding Fathers would recoil at the very notion of a career politician. I know they would object to these professional politicians because they knew such men would be dedicated to compromise and re-election, not change. In their continued quest for re-election, career politicians become beholden to the special interests that fill their war chests, thus enabling them to at least have a chance at re-election. They no longer seek to make changes for the better as they once may have intended; instead, they seek to keep matters just as they are. In short, they attend to the preservation of the status quo. And although it may appear that I believe these politicians to be corrupt, this is not altogether true. Many legislators come to Washington D.C. with the intention of changing the status quo. However, they become part of a process that is so corrupt, so divorced from reality that they are unable to keep the promises made during campaign season unless they play the game.

The Founding Fathers created our federal government with the understanding that citizens would not seek national office until they were familiar enough with the issues affecting both their constituents and the nation as a whole. The Founding Fathers believed having a career outside of politics was important, but that success in a chosen career was significant because it demonstrated that the individual possessed common sense, intelligence and a strong work ethic. They also believed such men would not be so easily corrupted. Along the same lines, if a politician intended to remain in office for only a few short years, he could brush aside those who preach compromise in favor of standing strong on the issue or issues for which he came to Washington D.C. to address. If one examines my former home state, California, one will find that of the fifty-two members of the U.S. House of Representatives, eleven have been in office for over twenty years! I invite you to examine the “professional” careers of your federal legislators. You will be amazed.

Career politicians are one of the primary reasons the federal government is so dysfunctional. They sit on their federal thrones passing judgment on everyone else. They continually blame everyone and everything else for the problems facing America. They never blame themselves. The time has come for the American people to set term limits for all federal legislators and the only way to do this is by Constitutional Amendment because if we allow career politicians to enact a law limiting the time they may serve in Congress, I know the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down that law as an unconstitutional infringement of free speech. In short, if we, the people, do not amend the U.S. Constitution so that it clearly sets term limits for federal legislators, these career politicians will surely bring this Republic to its knees.

The relevant sections of the U.S. Constitution that address term lengths of federal legislators are Article 1, Sections 2 and 3 (House and Senate respectively). The amendments I propose are straightforward. First, Article 1; Section 2 must be amended so that a member of the House of Representatives serves a four-year term with a maximum of two terms. Currently, each member of the House is up for election every two years. As such, each member of the House spends at least half his term running for re-election. Although they will deny this assertion, it is true. Second, Article 1; Section 3 must be amended so that a member of the Senate may only serve two six-year terms. In this way, a federal legislator will only be able to “sit” in Congress for eight years if elected only to the House of Representatives and twelve years if elected only to the Senate. Finally, a clause must be inserted at the end of Article 1; Section 2 stating that no one may serve in Congress for more than fourteen years. This formula would allow a politician to serve in the House for two terms and still able to serve one term in the Senate. Fourteen years in political office should be enough for anyone and any country.

In addition to limiting the time a federal legislator can serve, another issue with respect to career politicians must be addressed. The U.S. Constitution requires that for a citizen to be elected to the House of Representatives he must be twenty-five years of age; thirty years of age to be elected to the Senate. Why did the Founding Fathers impose this obvious limitation? The answer is simple. The Founding Fathers did not want federal legislators coming to Washington D.C. who had little or no life experience. The Founding Fathers wanted federal legislators to be men of experience who understood the national issues they would be addressing. The Founding Fathers knew that success outside of elected office indicated competence. They also knew it to be evidence that the individual had a commitment to self-sacrifice - a quality that does not usually lead to corruptibility. I invite you to explore the professional careers of your elected officials and judge for yourselves what experience they brought to elected office.

The last amendment to the U.S. Constitution would mandate a balanced federal budget. Personally, I was never convinced that such a measure was necessary until I saw what Congress did with the budget surpluses of 1998 and 1999. Congress’ complete and utter disregard for fiscal restraint the past fifty years caused America to become a debtor nation with the national debt looming like a storm cloud waiting to burst. Therefore, if we do not mandate via the U.S. Constitution that Congress stay within certain fiscal guidelines, the result will be further federal waste, the bankruptcy of the Social Security Trust Fund and a future filled with debt. The following facts must prove the truth of the above assertion.

In 1997, Congress proclaimed that budget-balancing laws had been enacted to “cap” or limit federal spending. They told the American people that they would limit Congressional spending and backed it up with these so-called “spending caps.” Again, career politicians lied to us. In the first year the “caps” were to be applied, Congress violated its own self-imposed regulations. When Republicans attempted to display a small measure of fiscal restraint, former President Clinton vetoed even a modest one percent across-the-board decrease in the proposed increase in federal spending.[[90]] As these events unfolded, it became abundantly clear to me that the U.S. Constitution must be amended if we are to stop Democrats and Republicans alike from bankrupting this nation. It is also when I should have realized the Republican Party was not the political party I thought it was.

As for actually drafting a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, I would again urge every American to read Tyranny of the Status Quo by Rose and Milton Friedman. Unlike so many political commentators of the day, the Friedmans go beyond simply identifying the problem: they propose solutions - solutions grounded in common sense and logic.[[91]] Their idea of what a balanced budget amendment should look like provides an excellent example of the necessary wording.

Only a short time ago, the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated that within the next ten years, there would exist a $1.1 trillion operating budget surplus. And since the release of the first edition of this book, that figure has been adjusted to reflect an even greater amount. What then is Congress to do with an operating budget surplus? It appears there are a few things it should do with this money. First, Congress can use the “surplus” to reduce the national debt. Second, Congress can return it to the Social Security Trust Fund that it has been robbing for decades. Third, Congress can invest it into Medicare in order to prevent that fund from evaporating. Fourth, Congress can return the “surplus” to the rightful owners of those dollars - the American taxpayer. Reality will, unfortunately, find this “surplus” spent on making big government bigger and inefficient government more inefficient.

I believe there are only two choices for Congress in deciding how to handle any federal operating budget surplus. First, Congress should replenish the Social Security Trust Fund. Since they have been robbing this fund for years, this course of action makes sense. Second, Congress could use the surplus to pay down the national debt. This also makes sense because we cannot leave this enormous burden for our children if only because their burdens are plenty enough already. Nevertheless, it appears as if Congress has decided on a third choice. Congress has decided to return the surplus to the taxpayer in the form of a refund. This is better than wasting the surplus on bigger government; however, it will not prevent the coming storm. Should the economy continue to slow and the tax revenues coming into the federal government decrease, the end result will not only be an increase in our national debt (somewhere around $7 trillion), but a further eroding of the Social Security Trust Fund. This may very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Once the Second Constitutional Convention concludes its work with respect to amending the U.S. Constitution, the citizen-delegates must turn their energies toward formulating plans of action to address the other more pressing problems facing this nation. I offer here my thoughts on one of these areas: rebuilding our major cities. As for formulating an action plan to save Medicare, I will not offer solutions because my expertise is in jurisprudence and history. The resolutions to those problems must be left to the citizen-delegates of the Second Constitutional Convention such as the nurses, doctors, accountants, engineers and University professors specializing in these fields.

Having been raised in the 1960s and 1970s in an urban environment and having lived and worked throughout the United States, I am well-suited to discuss the decay of our major cities - a decay that has propelled many of our most pressing social problems to the forefront of American life. If you doubt this assertion, ask yourself where rampant drug abuse, gang warfare, and the abandonment of individual responsibility in favor of government entitlements began. The cities of New York, Washington D.C., Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles serve as excellent examples of what happens when big government is viewed as the answer to the social problems plaguing society. Unfortunately, the internal decay of these cities has only hurt those the federal government intended to help. And if you also doubt this assertion, I invite you to travel to Detroit. You will see firsthand the failures of the federal government and those that embrace it as the path to social well-being.

The Second Constitutional Convention must produce a plan resembling in part the plan that the United States implemented following World War II to rebuild Western Europe. Although any plan to rebuild our cities would be different in scope as compared to the Marshall Plan, it does serve as an example of how a central government can succeed in solving problems that transcend the sovereignty of the state. I realize that implementing a plan like that witnessed in Western Europe after the war is easier said than done. However, the basic principles of the Marshall Plan, rebuild industry and the infrastructure supporting it, is exactly what America’s once great industrial cities need.

Breakthroughs in transportation made American cities great. In the last century, the creation of the streetcar, the subway and the automobile allowed people to travel to work in mass numbers. Today, the Age of Technology is again shifting where people work. Today, more than ever, people are working from their homes and on the road. This reverse migration from our great cities to the surrounding environs is leaving many of these cities in dire need of revitalization. And rather than spend billions of dollars destroying and rebuilding Serbia and Kosovo, the federal government could have spent the money rebuilding the ravaged neighborhoods of Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles or Detroit.

The rebuilding of our major cities must take precedence over spending billions of dollars in places like the Balkans. The Kosovo campaign was wrong for primarily two reasons: First, the money spent on behalf of Albanians was money that should have been invested in our infrastructure. Although this may seem self-serving, it is not. The revitalization of cities like Detroit and Washington D.C. will provide opportunities for those seeking to leave that war torn region for a better life. Second, the belief that by bombing Serbians we will solve the problems of the Balkans and make government leaders hesitate before committing mass murder reflects either an ignorance of Balkan history. Historically, the prosperity of America walked hand-in-hand with the development of her great cities. So too can America prosper in the next century by the rejuvenation of her major industrial cities like Detroit.

As a final note, I offer my thoughts on the logistics around surrounding the Second Constitutional Convention. And since the issue of paying for the Second Constitutional Convention is the easiest to resolve, I will address it first. The federal government must be compelled to make available the funds from its operating budget to pay these delegates of the people. The resulting loss of funding will only minimally impair current federal appropriations – appropriations that do not reflect the will of a people, not the whim of a few. The citizen-delegates should be paid a sum equal to that of a freshman member of the House of Representatives. In addition, each delegate will also be provided the support staff necessary to fulfill the task at hand including a staff at least equal to half that of a member of the House should be sufficient. Since the federal civilian payroll should be reduced by at least 50%, it seems logical to conclude that a citizen-delegate would need only half the support staff of a current federal legislator.

With respect to the citizen-delegates to the Second Constitutional Convention, I believe it sufficient for purposes of debate that each state would select a number of delegates equal to one-third the number of delegates that state currently has in the U.S. House of Representatives. With one exception and that being each state must have at least two delegates no matter the number of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives. Each state must be able to place a delegate on the floor of the convention and another free to contact their respective states should the issue arise.

As for the election of these citizen-delegates, it only makes sense that they would be elected in a national election for candidates to the constitutional assembly. It will be for each state to decide how, when and where this election would take place. Once each state has selected its citizen-delegates, these delegates would assemble at a predetermined time and place to begin the transformation of our federal government and our society.

The location of the Second Constitutional Convention is only important in that it cannot be Washington D.C., New York or Los Angeles. The reason it cannot be in Washington D.C. is obvious. The reason it cannot be convened in New York or Los Angeles is simply a matter of geography. It is imperative that every citizen be given a chance to see their delegates in action so that they in turn can tell their children and their grandchildren that they witnessed history.[[92]] With this in mind, I believe the Second Constitutional Convention should take place in as neutral a site as geographically possible. St. Louis or Chicago would make perfect locations.

As soon as the Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are written and plans drafted to address the major problems facing America, these citizen-delegates would return to their respective states to convince the citizens of their states that their efforts will bear fruit. Ultimately, it must be the citizens of each state who bears the responsibility for amending the U.S. Constitution. When two thirds of the state legislatures call for such a Convention and three fourths of these state legislatures ratify the Amendments proposed, the U.S. Constitution will be so amended and a nation of separate but sovereign states re-born.

Finally, the thoughts and ideas presented above reflect what I believe to be an honest assessment of the problems facing America and what we can do to solve them. Although I may not have all the answers with respect to the finer points, as the devil is always in the details, I believe the suggestions outlined above provide a good starting point from which the delegates of the Second Constitutional Convention can begin debate. If my thoughts and ideas about the make-up of the Constitutional Convention seem simplistic, it is because they are simplistic. I am not an expert in organizing a Constitutional Convention but I believe the simpler the formula, the greater the chance of success. I also believe that if wait any longer, the resources necessary to change the status quo will vanish. We must not allow this opportunity to pass because not every day will be a new day!

In an effort to address violence in our schools, the federal government has acted in the only way it knows how - by throwing money at the problem. In the last twelve years, the federal government spent nearly six billion dollars in its crusade to stop drug use and violence in public schools.[[96]] As always, our legislators in Washington D.C. passed a new law, the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (the Act), with their usual smug confidence that this law would stop the violence. They are simple-minded fools incapable of understanding both the magnitude of the problem and the gravity of the situation.

Violence in our schools is alive and well. The only tangible impact of the Act was the waste of six billion dollars of our national treasure. No progress was made in the war to stop the violence against our children. Rather than spend our money keeping dangerous predators locked in prison, our politicians needed photo opportunities so they could tell their voters that they make a difference. The federal government’s answer to elevating the learning skills of poor children has always been to pour money into the problem in the hope that the problem would go away. As part of President Johnson's war on poverty, the federal government began pouring money into public education with the stated goal of narrowing the gap between the performance levels of rich and poor students.[[97]] Title I, as it is known, provided approximately $118 billion to our public school systems in order to close this gap.[[98]] Any intelligent person should have realized that simply dumping funds into the breach would not bridge this gap.

I believe the learning gap between rich and poor children derives primarily from two factors. The first is the home. Poor children tend to be from families that do not stress education or from single-parent families where the sole parent is pushed to his or her limit just to survive. The second factor is outside the door of these children’s homes - the lure of making fast money and the violence that is gangland USA. Poverty, neglect and crime create this gap and no amount of spin or government involvement can change it. When a child lives under these conditions, no amount of federal spending will increase their academic performance. Only a reformation of society can do that. And if the American people doubt the gravity of the current crisis in education, I would point them to the rise in teenage suicide and teenage violence over the past twenty-five years. I have often asked myself what must be going through the mind of a teenager or young adult that makes him conclude that death is preferable to life. The answer is despair.

Like so many children growing up in today’s world, I have felt the pain of teenage suicide. In fact, I would estimate that any reader under the age of forty knows at least one classmate that has committed suicide. In my case, it is many, many more. I know this was not the case with my parent’s generation. I can think of no more accurate reflection of late 20^thcentury America than teenage suicide and teenage violence. I can think of no better evidence of the moral decay of our nation than the fact that so many young people would rather end their lives than live in our society. Their cries must be our wake-up call.

The tragic state of public education in America is just one of the time sensitive problems waiting to become a national disaster. A failing education system is also one of the first signs of a nation in decline. The future of our nation rests squarely on the shoulders of our children – the same children we drug to keep quiet, feed junk food to make happy and of course shower with Chinese made toys to prove our love.

Grass Roots Movement in the Age of the Internet

The Internet affords us the unprecedented ability to communicate with each other. One is able to converse with millions almost simultaneously – something only radio and television could accomplish. The advantage such vast communicative abilities will give any political movement is impossible to estimate. Rest assured, the longer we wait to change the status quo, the closer the federal government comes to regulating and thus controlling the Internet. Since the career politicians and the faceless, nameless bureaucrats want to preserve the status quo. They will see the potential of the Internet for change and work to eliminate the threat.

The citizens of this country must carry out the actions necessary to creating fundamental change in government and society. I believe this is exactly what the Founding Fathers intended. As such, our movement will be comprised of Patriots just as was General Washington’s Continental Army. However, the Patriots of the Third American Revolution will not carry muskets, bayonets and knives, as did our Founding Fathers. The Patriots of our revolution will carry cellular phones and laptop computers. Our movement embraces intelligent and logical ideas - not knee-jerk reactions. It is discarding the old notions of liberal and conservative thought in favor of logic and common sense. And we shall resolve them with or without the help of our esteemed members of Congress. They have had their day and it has cost the lives of so many of His angels.

Our movement will not resort to violence unless of course the federal government fails to change the corrupt political process it now embraces. If it does fail to change the status quo before the next generation comes of age, I assure you they will change it for us. Yes, we must make every effort to see that the Third American Revolution is bloodless. And as much as I may want to spill the blood of men that have ravished our children or sat idle while others did, we must first use methods of nonviolence because nonviolent change is always the preferred course of action in an enlightened society. Moreover, only when we have exhausted every effort to bring about a peaceful reformation of the federal government can we honestly say to our children that we were left with no choice but armed insurrection.

The beginning of our movement was first sighted when men and women acted in the memory of an angel that went missing in the 1990s. And although many states have since enacted statutes such as New Jersey’s “Meagan’s Law,” this approach is not enough to protect our children. It is true that statutes like “Meagan’s Law” enable the public to gain information about the dangerous predators that live in their neighborhoods. However, these laws are ineffective for many reasons. First among these reasons is the sad fact that no single law enforcement organization in America is dedicated to tracking these animals. Certainly not to the degree I am suggesting, the law permits and He demands. Furthermore, should the predator decide to leave the community, change his name and/or appearance, he is virtually untraceable. We cannot allow them to prey upon our children any longer. The price of such inaction is one I am not prepared to pay. Are you?

The Patriots of our movement will take their place in American history alongside the men and women of the American Revolution provided great sacrifices are made. Sacrifices very much like those I have made on behalf of our children. If we are to save America from itself, we can only do so if we sacrifice some of the comforts we currently enjoy. What is ironic is that we can sacrifice some comforts today in order to secure our collective future or we can stand by and watch these comforts taken from us in the name of political expediency. If you doubt the veracity of this statement, ask yourself how many comforts you will enjoy if the federal government continues its repressive taxation. Let these words stand as our call to action. And the decision to act at this decisive time in our history is one each and every American must make. They must make this decision with the knowledge that failure is not an option because our children will have to live with the consequences; consequences that will most assuredly entail higher taxes, an enormous national debt, a prison population of four million and a national defense wholly dependent on weapons of mass destruction that a weak and immoral government will surely utilize again and again.

In our struggle to save the American dream and our children’s right to it, I will expect no greater sacrifice than the one I have made. If I were to expect a greater sacrifice from you than I am willing to make, I would be nothing more than a hypocrite, like those pandering to special interests from their thrones in Washington D.C. However many flaws may exist in my person, I am a good person that has lived by the rule that I do unto others as I want done to me. Nevertheless, I decided to draw the line when it comes to those that prey upon women and children. They are the enemies of our children and therefore must be defeated no matter the cost.

I offer the following real life scenarios as an example of both the actions of men and women that wanted to change the status quo as well as the response we can expect from the protectors of the status quo. The first scenario involves the actions undertaken by a police department in California. The South Gate Police Department began printing street maps designating the locations of sex offenders living in the local neighborhoods.[[99]] The men and women of law enforcement printed these maps and distributed them to the local schools with the hope that parents might change the route their children traveled to school so as to avoid these monsters. This is perfectly legal since the law allows citizens the right to know if sex offenders live in their neighborhoods. Unfortunately, it took the rape, torture and murder of an angel to bring about this small change to the status quo. It is also unfortunate that the Los Angeles Unified School District did not embrace the efforts of local law enforcement. One administrator fought this attempt to possibly spare our children the horror of being raped because he did not believe such action had value. How pathetic. I wonder how many children will suffer as a result of this administrator’s opinion.

The second scenario involves the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. And since our right to free speech is jeopardized in a society where it takes millions of dollars to get elected to the United States Congress, I feel compelled to address an issue that liberals have consistently distorted in an effort to serve their political agenda. They want you to believe the violence in America is the result of a gun culture. They want you to believe the men and women that comprise the “gun” lobby are fanatics that want to sell everyone a gun. Moreover, they want you to believe that the epidemic of gun violence in America is the fault of gun manufactures and their lobbyists. Rubbish. The violence that permeates America is the result of two equally powerful phenomena. First, the violence that children are bombarded with everyday in our perverse society is the primary reason why so many turn to violence. Second, and a close second indeed, is the failure of the criminal justice system to deter criminals from committing crimes with a gun. We cannot let these men and women place the blame for violence in America on firearms manufactures in order to avoid responsibility for their failed ideas of crime and punishment.

Every American knows of the debate between those who support the idea that gun control laws will curb the violence and those who support the idea that the U.S. Constitution forbids any infringement of our right to keep and bear arms (Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution). The gun control lobby and the media that supports it insist on confusing the issues. Gun control is nothing more than the idea that by passing laws to control the use, ownership and sale of firearms, the epidemic of violent crime in America will end. In short, liberals and those members of Congress advocating for the passage of more gun control laws, want the American people to believe that organizations like the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Republican Party 9GOP) oppose gun control because they want everyone to have unlimited access to firearms. This is a lie. It is also the foundation of a bankrupt philosophy. Liberals have had their day fighting crime. What they have created with their ideas of unfettered individual liberty and compassionate justice is a society where the rights of criminals take precedence over the rights of victims. Their ideas of stopping the violence that permeates our society are as outdated and foolish as their belief that child rapists can be rehabilitated.

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