My Beauty Best Teacher

EducatingAfrica is a Foundation that was formed to support cost effective, relevant and sensible education initiatives and assist them to become self sustainable wherever possible...they are committed to supporting cost effective and financially self sufficient education initiatives across all levels of education in each country in Africa.

Madaktari Africa works to create stronger, more self-sufficient communities in the developing world. Our physician-volunteers train local doctors to manage an expanding range of specialized medical needs. We help local caregivers learn the techniques and acquire the tools they need to care for the community. They can then teach others, creating a growing, self-propagating system of care. This process is proving to be a key element in helping these communities raise themselves from poverty to sustainable social and economic health.

Madaktari Africa works to create stronger, more self-sufficient communities in the developing world. Our physician-volunteers train local doctors to manage an expanding range of specialized medical needs. We help local caregivers learn the techniques and acquire the tools they need to care for the community. They can then teach others, creating a growing, self-propagating system of care. This process is proving to be a key element in helping these communities raise themselves from poverty to sustainable social and economic health.

Since my my last post (My Personal Experience Fighting the Worship of Earth Hour) was so serious, I'm going to follow it up with a lighter post today, about stuff that I find funny.

First, take a look at the picture of the bear- according to the US Fish & Wildlife Service office in Kalispell, Montana, that little fella has taken to sitting every day at the picnic table apparently waiting to be fed and to have his winter den dug by government employees. Although he once was self-sufficient, he now begs for a handout every day from our generous government. Because of this, residents have taken to calling him Bearack Obama!

Next, according to the Detroit News, a new industry is starting up in Detroit, and I suspect that it actually is the fast-growing industry in the city (other than working for the government). The new industry is urban hunting and skinning. Yes, like a scene out of I Am Legend, the wilderness is retaking the city of Detroit, and the animal population is moving into areas that were once inhabited by productive men. Years of Democrat control in action!

The story in the Detroit News is the story of a young 69-year old entrepreneur, who has to supplement his Social Security checks by hunting raccoons in the city of Detroit. Apparently this guy kills coons with the help of his rifle and coon dog, butchers the meat, and sells it to local residents, and he also sells the skins- but doesn't pay taxes on these sales (must be a Democrat). The meat is not USDA approved (probably something to do with rabies), but the video about the story (go to the link for the article to watch it and howl with laughter) shows coon meat being served with liver and onions and Faygo red pop- just the way mom made it!

In other news, Obama recently was in England, and since he had to talk to people over there, he brought with him 5 speech-writers and 12 teleprompters for the weekend. I don't think that was enough- I heard some of his stammering and stuttering in a press conference- but still- 12 teleprompters? Can't you just bring one and move it from place to place? Or do they have to put a separate one up everywhere he goes and load it with his thoughts?

Sadly the teleprompter didn't let his wife know that you aren't supposed to touch the Queen of England- it's apparently a big no-no. Doesn't anyone on his staff do any research on this stuff? I guess not- Michelle put her arm around the Queen and gave her a noogie on national television- probably not a good idea, but at least her arms were fantastic!

Lastly, least we forget how low the bar was for Presidents (and yet Obama still gets under it), here is a hilarious clip from a George W. Bush press conference where he is talking about fighting the biggest threat to our lives- zombies. That's right- laugh if you want, but apparently zombies are a big threat, and I am glad our President did everything he could to wipe them out- click on the link if you don't believe me. Enjoy!

NOTE to NEW READERS: New readers, please feel free to also check out some of my recent good posts like Obama is a Caudillo, The Inside Deal: Obama's Economic Program, Employment-Population Ratio Drops to 58.5%, Earth Day: Is it just one big Communist Plot?, Gifted Programs in Schools Training Future Liberals, or Obama On Inner and Outer Circles of Leadership. Also feel free to link to blog-curhatanku.blogspot.com on your blog, and bookmark conservativeteacher.blogspot.com so you can become a regular reader of the battles of a conservative teacher's attempt to advance the principles of liberty and freedom.

Jacques Gaillard & Anne Marie Gaillard write in SciDev:

The diaspora model will never be a low cost, self-sufficient answer to Africa's scientific needs. Its effectiveness depends crucially on the internal dynamics of the home-based scientific communities. After all, a network of expatriates is at best an extension of a national scientific community, not a substitute. Efforts should therefore, first and foremost, focus on strengthening national scientific capacity particularly training and recruiting the next generation of scientists. If this is not done, the diaspora will only be a smart cloak hiding shabby clothes.

Taxpayers are expected to pay $8.5 million this year for employees at the the United States Postal Service to show up for work, sit in a break room, and do nothing, according to a recent audit. These workers show up to work, knowing that equipment is broke or that (based on past estimates) mail volume will be low, and then sit around receiving taxpayer money for doing nothing. This 'standby' time, which will amount to 341332 hours a year, also allows these employees to put in enough hours to be full-time employees and fully receive benefits and retirement packages that are quite expensive as well.

Assuming that an average work week is 40 hours and that these employees receive two weeks vacation, that works out to 2000 hours of work each year per employee, if the post office stopped its practice of 'standby time' this would allow the post office to lay off 170 workers. The average postal worker makes $50K/year, so the elimination of this practice would save the postal service 8500K/year, or $8.5 million.

These savings do not include benefits and retirement packages for these employees, which I assume would multiply the savings by several times- postal employees make half their salary on retirement and receive generous benefits before and during employment, so the savings from ending the practice of 'standby time' would be in the tens of millions each year and continue forward into the future.

That's not to say that cutting 'standby time' for postal employees is going to make the United Stats Post Office self-sufficient- the post office has been hemorrhaging red ink for years and is projected to lose as much as $7 billion dollars this year alone. But this is to say that taxpayers should not be paying for employees to stand around.

And keep in mind that if the post office is paying hundreds of workers to 'sit around', it likely has thousands of workers who are doing 'make-work' and who are working at less than full capacity. Oh, I don't mean that postal employees are lazy, I just mean that the structure and culture of their business does not fully maximize the effort and abilities of every worker and likely means that this independent agency is running way below peak efficiency and could save taxpayers billions of dollars a year by becoming a hard working institution of public service.

Postal employees should work and work hard and be paid for their time working- they should not be paid to sit around and do nothing. Contact your Congressman and demand that the Post Office stop its 'paid standby time' practice.

h/p Washington Post

UPDATE: I see from a story today that the US Postal Service is on the edge of default due to its own actions and management. Imagine if the United States government ran critical aspects of our economy, such as healthcare, in the same fashion that they ran investment banks like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, trains like Amtrack, or the mail like in the Postal Service:

The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.

Aboyeji E Iyinoluwa writes in Project Diaspora:

...when one looks closely at the CAP, the objectives are very Euro-centric - and rightly so. The entire point of the subsidies are to enable Europe be self sufficient in the production of its food. For food import loving Africans, this might seem like a strange idea, but in a world of genetic modification, bio terrorism and Monsanto, food is becoming a national security issue and there are several good reason for keeping its production domestic. In fact, a lot of the developed countries we aspire to (including the United States) have subsidies in the spirit and style of the CAP. In a perfect world, much of Africa’s chronic food shortage problems could be solved by adopting a CAP style arrangement for Agricultural production. There is no sense is trying to open a European market for African agricultural products when even with huge volumes of food imports, we can barely satiate the starving people on our own continent.

Paul Theroux in the NYTimes writes "...It seems to have been Africa's fate to become a theater of empty talk and public gestures. But the impression that Africa is fatally troubled and can be saved only by outside help - not to mention celebrities and charity concerts - is a destructive and misleading conceit. Those of us who committed ourselves to being Peace Corps teachers in rural Malawi more than 40 years ago are dismayed by what we see on our return visits and by all the news that has been reported recently from that unlucky, drought-stricken country. But we are more appalled by most of the proposed solutions...Africa is a lovely place - much lovelier, more peaceful and more resilient and, if not prosperous, innately more self-sufficient than it is usually portrayed. But because Africa seems unfinished and so different from the rest of the world, a landscape on which a person can sketch a new personality, it attracts mythomaniacs, people who wish to convince the world of their worth. Such people come in all forms and they loom large...Africa has no real shortage of capable people - or even of money. The patronizing attention of donors has done violence to Africa's belief in itself, but even in the absence of responsible leadership, Africans themselves have proven how resilient they can be - something they never get credit for..."
Analysed at Worldchanging

Josh Ruxin writes in the NYTimes:

Programs that allow the world’s poor to be self sufficient are smart on many levels. They allow more stability — indeed, those parts of the world with good agriculture programs have been less susceptible to the food rioting we’ve seen recently in the world’s poorer urban areas. Such programs are also more cost effective for American taxpayers since they cost less than emergency food aid. Most importantly, when they allow small farmers in Rwanda or Tanzania to grow hardy crops bred to be drought- and pest-resistant, these programs help the poor feed themselves.

They can also help local subsistence farmers make money and climb up from poverty into prosperity. Small farmers who work to meet local and regional demand end up putting more acreage into profitable cultivation, and the income they receive even allows them to invest in crops like pomegranates — a high-demand niche product for which wholesalers and food production companies will pay a premium.

Here in Detroit, a recent audit by the Detroit News turned up more evidence that we are descending into a police state- in this case, the News found out that police are being forced to write tickets in order to fund their operations. This could be a good thing- self-sufficient government and all that libertarian stuff- but I think it is a bad thing- there is more and more pressure on officials to enforce every law without regard to fairness and justice, just to make a buck.

This line in the article in particular bothers me:

The attempt to have Shelby (Township Police) officers write more tickets is likely tied to a proposed $23 million police and court complex.

On this blog and around the internet, 'The People" is one of the most frequent justifications that are provided by liberals and Democrats for taxing the rich, forcing people to join a healthcare plan, stopping a mining company from mining for minerals on land that it purchased, and generally controlling people's choices and taking away their property.

So just who exactly are 'The People' who benefit when those who are successful are forced to pay higher tax rates when their investments do well or who gain when oil companies are not allowed to safely drill for oil?

I'm sure they don't mean that humanoid extraterrestrials who have paranormal powers will benefit- that would just be silly. (Zenna Henderson?)

What these liberals and Democrats usually mean when they cite 'The People' is that the so-called national community will benefit when the state gains the power to take away peoples property and choices, and that for the good of the people we need to return back to the land through green living and urban farming, lead more self-sufficient lives, and fight back against Big Business which is grinding us under its crushing foot of industrialization. Liberals and Democrats believe that 'The People' will benefit from an enlightened government that helps to progress society, and if this means that the principles of the free market or even popular elections are broken, than so be it- the People are more important than these concepts.

To liberals and Democrats, 'The People' mean the proletariat and traditional middle classes- union workers- who will benefit from a more government that is more progressive and friendly to workers.

As someone famous once said, when liberals talk about 'The People', they are talking about the basic ideas of a national government based on building social safety nets for 'The People' because 'The People' are the national government of progressive socialism.

The way that liberals throw around 'The People' is not new- in fact, the concept was pretty well established by the early 1900's. The German's called the concept of 'The People' the Völkisch movement, and it was one of the motivating factors behind Adolf Hilter and his fascist Nazi national socialist progressive party, which attempted to co-opt private industry for the good of 'The People' in order to provide national socialized healthcare, make people eat healthier food, make industries produce goods for the good of the state, and support the workers with strong union rights in a Big Business-Big Union-Big Government partnership.

What is old is new again, and we have been down this path before, so just be careful that you know what you mean when you start throwing around the term 'The People' in the future.

The world may be giving Obama prizes for hope and togetherness and stuff, but here is the states we have to live with his domestic polices, which recently includes Obama's decision to block the development of energy production and the jobs and prosperity that this development would have provided.

There are still businesses out there that wish to grow and invest in our nation and its bounty, but Obama and his policies are increasingly blocking that hope and changing the course of our nation from one of prosperity to one of poverty. As unemployment grows and our nation sends cash to energy-rich nations, Obama orders that 60 oil and natural gas wells that were in development be shut down.

After businesses expanded great effort and money to win contracts to drill for oil and make America more energy self-sufficient, provide jobs and money for our nation, and restore hope in our future as a great power, Obama and the Democrats swooped in after the contracts were awarded and arbitrarily shut these drills down, claiming the process was flawed. These actions are the arbitrary actions of a tyrannical government, not the law-abiding and rule-of-law actions of a government that is fair and honest towards all.

77 government-owned parcels, covering some 100,000 acres in eastern and southern Utah, were leased by the government last year by private companies that went through the correct processes and channels of government to win these leases. Then, after Obama took office, he broke those agreements and ordered development by those companies to immediately be shut down on the pretense that the agreements were 'rushed'.

Never before in the history of our nation has a President separated the history of our country into a pre- and after- era- and then determined that whatever happened before him- whether it was legal and proper or not- is no longer valid and everything that happens after him is now valid. Our country is bigger than one man, our laws are higher than one man, and our policies stretch from President to President without regard to who holds the office- until Democrat President Barack Obama took office and began to exercise his authority in an arbitrarily and tyrannical manner.

Perhaps the leases were given in a rushed manner- but no more so than the stimulus bill or the healthcare bill is being rushed through Congress. Being 'rushed' does not make the agreements any less valid and lawful, unless there were laws broken or improper actions taken, and the Obama Interior Department has not even suggested that. The whole basis for the US government breaking agreements and promises made was that 'Bush rushed'- and that line of logic is not an argument that should hold up in a court of law.

Our nation is slipping into tyranny and arbitrary actions by an increasingly unlawful and unbalanced government, all under the support and guidance of the Democratic Party of the United States, and you need to exert every action at every election to do what you can do to stop it and return our nation to the greatness to which it was once the envy of the world.

This year I'm getting off to kind of a slow start- for example, just yesterday I got my new Franklin planner pages and figured out what is going on for this month and this year. This post is another example- my obligatory 'best of' post. 2011 was a good year for my blog- readership is way up and lots of radio and newspaper interviews were set up- and there were a lot of great posts from which to choose from, so I basically just went with the numbers. Some of you are new regular readers and might have missed these, and my usual readers will also enjoy reading some of these posts again. So here you go, the Best Posts of A Conservative Teacher 2011:

How I Helped Mary Beth Hicks Write her Book 'Don't Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid'

Many of you know that I have been interviewed by newspapers (Detroit News) and by major radio shows (Larry Eldar Show) and some of you have even tuned in to hear me occasionally co-host a radio program (Total Education Hour), but it may surprise you all to know that I have also been a part of a major best-selling book- Don't Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid: Confronting the Left's Assault on Our Families, Faith, and Freedom by Mary Beth Hicks...

For some reason, my blog has been getting very popular in Ukraine recently- after the US, the second largest source of readers of my blog is coming from Ukraine over the past month, and all-time, Ukraine is the 5th biggest nation of readers of my blog. Why Ukraine? Perhaps it stems from a post I wrote in January 15, 2010 supporting Yulia Tymoshenko for President of Ukraine...

...Yesterday I heard some more about leadership from Howard Putnam at the Get Motivated Business Seminar that was held in Auburn Hills (see my post Get Motivated Business Seminar Review: Powell, Giuliani, Cosby, Putnam, Walsh, and More! for my full review). Mr. Putnam rose through the ranks at Southwest Airlines to become CEO of the company, where he led it to great profitability and success. According to Putnam, there are several principles of leadership. Let's look at each one, and then evaluate whether Obama, Romney, or I follow these rules on how to be an effective leader:...

...In my post NYT's Douthat is Wrong: Realigning Elections Exist and One is Coming I countered an argument that was advanced by the New York Times Ross Douthat where he claimed that Harvard Professor V.O. Key's theory on realigning elections was wrong. Douthat thought that 2008 was supposed to the be realigning election, and now that we can all see that it was not, he has become disillusioned with the theory that Key advanced in his iconic essay “A Theory of Critical Elections” and now thinks that elections that change America's direction are no longer possible. But he is wrong. In my post Why 2008 Was Not a Historic or Realigning Election (written in 2009) I addressed Key's theory of realigning elections and looked back on the election of 2008 and looked forward to 2012....

...But I have some issues with this data. According to my own analysis of the information provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing the employment-population ratio from 1988 to 2011 (seasonally adjusted), the number of people employed in our nation is holding steady at a new-normal post-Obama post-recovery number of 58.5%...

...In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I wrote that "At one time, I thought the 1930's were at the root of all that is wrong about America, and compiled a list of all of the laws and taxes and liberal decisions passed during that time." That post contained a list of all of those bad laws that came out of that time of fascism and communism and war and depression and collapsing social values. But one law that I left off that list was the Reapportionment Act of 1929, which established a permanent method for apportioning a now constant 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to each census, essentially capping the number of Representatives at 435...

...According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, there are even reports of a black bear that has recently taken to sitting every day at the picnic table, apparently waiting to be fed. He also has refused to dig out his own winter den, forcing government employees to do so. Although the bear once was self-sufficient, he now begs for a handout every day from our generous government, who provides him with food and a home because those rich fat cats who make a profit deserve to suffer or something or other. Because the bear was once a healthy and prosperous bear but now is just a lazy welfare case of a bear, the local residents have taken to calling him Bearack Obama...

...the massive spending in education at the federal level was largely a waste of money and did nothing to improve our test scores.... this group would argue that all of the spending done at the federal level is having little to no effect on test scores for students because the money is being gobbled up by bureaucrats in Washington who are far removed from the real educating of students at the local level. They would suggest spending less amounts on education at the federal level and seeing what might happen- perhaps test scores would remain flat as they have done for over 30 years, but if this happens than our nation could save that $77 billion dollars/year and use it in other areas where it might be needed or not use it at all and have our government run a balanced budget....

Earlier this week I wrote about the incoherence of liberals in my post Teaching and Brain-Dead Liberal Students. Today I direct you to Victor Davis Hanson's article The Imaginarium of Barack Obama, where he touches on the incoherence of the Grand Marshal of the Liberal Parade of Economic Doom, President Barack Obama:

The presidency of Barack Obama is full of funny things that need not follow any sort of logic. Images and ideas just pop in and out, without worry of inconsistency, contradiction, or hypocrisy. It’s a fascinating mish-mash of strange heroes and bogeymen, this imaginarium of our president.

In the imaginarium there are no revolving doors, earmarks, or lobbyists. So Peter Orszag did not go from being OMB director to a Citigroup fat-cat. Once chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel did not make $16 million for his well-known banking expertise. The more you damn the pernicious role of lobbyists and the polluting role of big money, the more you must hire and seek out both. Public financing of campaigns is wonderful for everyone else who lacks the integrity of Barack Obama who understandably must renounce such unfair impositions.

Those who now vote against raising the large Obama debt ceiling are political hucksters and opportunists; those who not long ago voted against raising the smaller Bush debt ceiling were principled statesmen. “Unpatriotic” presidents borrow $4 trillion in eight years; patriotic ones we’ve been waiting for can trump that in three.

Catching known terrorists and putting them in Guantanamo is very bad; killing suspected ones by drone assassinations — and anyone unlucky enough to be in their general vicinity — is exceptionally good. Tribunals, renditions, preventative detention, and all that were bad ideas under Bush-Cheney, but could become good ideas under Barack Obama, the law professor who often sees no need to follow the law when an immigration or marriage statute is deemed regressive.

A million Iranians protesting a soon-to-be-nuclear theocracy is false revolutionary consciousness and to be left alone; a few thousand Israelis wanting to buy apartments in the Jerusalem suburbs is subversive and worthy of presidential condemnation. And when atoning for supposed American lapses, what better place to begin apologizing than in Turkey, the incubator of the Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish mass killings? We need to deny history to make the case that America is not exceptional, and to invent it to persuade us that the Muslim world is extraordinary....

...There are lots of ways to bring Americans together across class and racial lines. One in the imaginarium is to focus on the “teabag, anti-government people.” Another is to encourage Hispanics to “punish our enemies” — or have the attorney general lambaste Americans as racial “cowards” and to defend “my people.” Joining foreign governments to sue a fellow American state is no more red/no more blue state unity. Still another is to divide up the people between the suspect who make over $200,000 and the noble who make less, or yet again target the dubious “1%” at “the very top” who do not pay “their fair share,” a mere 40% of the aggregate income tax.

Inside the imaginarium, the way to demonize the “1%” is to vacation among them — whether at Martha’s Vineyard or Costa del Sol. Buying a corporate jet is a waste of the people’s money — unlike daily flying on a much bigger private jet paid by the people....

...The president regrets that we are not innovative any more, and have gone “soft” and “lazy.” You see, his efforts at ensuring cradle-to-grave health care entitlements, of granting 99 weeks of unemployment insurance, and of extending food stamps to nearly 50 million are apparently incentives that should have led to a “hard” and “industrious” populace that was more self-reliant and willing to take risks on their own. “Spread the wealth” is a time-honored way of galvanizing people to become more self-disciplined and sufficient....

...In the imaginarium, community organizer Barack Obama never lived in a small mansion. John “two Americas” Edwards never lived in a big one. “Earth in the balance” Al Gore never lived in a few of them, and yacht owning John Kerry never lived in lots of them. You see in the imaginarium of Barack Obama you can be whatever you wish to be. Just wishing and saying something can wonderfully make it so.

Although I am no expert in this, I have always felt that the 1930's were an interesting time period in our nation. The Victorian age had come to a bloody conclusion with World War One, and a whole generation of people were now being raised in a society that saw their parents as failures- their attempts to repress their sexual urges, their attempts to stick to the old ways, their attempts to put in place world peace, their attempts to build multinational nations- all had led to one of the most bloody and brutal and worthless wars of all time. Technology was changing fast- cars and telephones and radio and motion picture- and the children of the 1910's and 1920's thought that they had everything figured out- they thought that where other generations had failed due to their reliance on religion, traditional values, free markets, republicanism, and limited government, they would succeed by figuring out a third way of doing things, a practical way of doing things, a way of doing things that used the power of government to make society a better place to live. This new generation, horrified by WWI and mocking their parents lack of technology skills, had it all figured out, and ushered in an era of fascism and communism and World War Two.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I cataloged all of the laws that were passed in the 1930's in America that are with us today- such as the Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI, 1936), Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI, 1929), Social Security Act (USA, 1935), Fair Labor Standards Act (USA, 1938), Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA, 1930), Hoover Tax Hike (USA, 1932), National Labor Relations Act (USA, 1935), Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI, 1921), Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day (1939), Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI, 1927), US moves off gold standard (1933), Reapportionment Act (USA, 1929), etc. Looking through that list and thinking of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly), I was always stunned, and wondered how people had let that come to pass.

As it turns out, the Republican Party of 1936 had put together a platform to oppose a lot of these fascist ideas, but people loved their hope and change and returned FDR to the White House instead, and so the Great Depression dragged on for another decade. Via Conservative Hideout, let's take a walk back in history and see just exactly what the GOP was offering as an alternative back then to the high taxes, high regulation, crony capitalism, fascist third way system that FDR was pushing our nation into. Here is a good chunk of the 1936 Republican Party Platform:

1936 Republican Party PlatformAmerica is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.

For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support. The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President... the rights and liberties of American citizens have been violated... regulated monopoly has displaced free enterprise.... it has intimidated witnesses and interfered with the right of petition... it has been guilty of frightful waste and extravagance, using public funds for partisan political purposes... it has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures... it has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.... it has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.... appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

To a free people, these actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election transcends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join us in defense of American institutions. We pledge ourselves:

...To preserve the American system of free enterprise, private competition, and equality of opportunity, and to seek its constant betterment in the interests of all.

The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. To that end, we advocate: Removal of restrictions on production. Abandonment of all New Deal policies that raise production costs, increase the cost of living, and thereby restrict buying, reduce volume and prevent reemployment. Encouragement instead of hindrance to legitimate business. Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. Elimination of unnecessary and hampering regulations. Adoption of such other policies as will furnish a chance for individual enterprise, industrial expansion, and the restoration of jobs.

Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it. We propose a system of old age security, based upon the following principles: 1. We approve a pay-as-you-go policy, which requires of each generation the support of the aged and the determination of what is just and adequate, 2. Every American citizen over sixty-five should receive the supplementary payment necessary to provide a minimum income sufficient to protect him or her from want. 3. Each state and territory, upon complying with simple and general minimum standards, should receive from the federal government a graduated contribution in proportion to its own, up to a fixed maximum....

...Nearly sixty percent of all imports into the United States are now free of duty. The other forty percent of imports compete directly with the product of our industry. We would keep on the free list all products not grown or produced in the United States in commercial quantities. As to all commodities that commercially compete with our farms, our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our oil wells, our labor and our industries, sufficient protection should be maintained at all times to defend the American farmer and the American wage earner from the destructive competition emanating from the subsidies of foreign governments and the imports from low-wage and depreciated-currency countries....

...We recognize the existence of a field within which governmental regulation is desirable and salutary. The authority to regulate should be vested in an independent tribunal acting under clear and specific laws establishing definite standards. Their determinations on law and facts should be subject to review by the Courts. We favor Federal regulation, within the Constitution, of the marketing of securities to protect investors. We favor also Federal regulation of the interstate activities of public utilities...

...We pledge ourselves to the merit system, virtually destroyed by New Deal spoilsmen. It should be restored, improved and extended. We will provide such conditions as offer an attractive permanent career in government service to young men and women of ability, irrespective of party affiliations.

The New Deal Administration has been characterized by shameful waste, and general financial irresponsibility. It has piled deficit upon deficit. It threatens national bankruptcy and the destruction through inflation of insurance policies and savings bank deposits. We pledge ourselves to: Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget—not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately. Revise the federal tax system and coordinate it with state and local tax systems. Use the taxing power for raising revenue and not for punitive or political purposes.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards. The first requisite to a sound and stable currency is a balanced budget. We oppose further devaluation of the dollar. We will restore to the Congress the authority lodged with it by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof by repealing all the laws delegating this authority to the Executive....

...We assume the obligations and duties imposed upon Government by modern conditions. We affirm our unalterable conviction that, in the future as in the past, the fate of the nation will depend, not so much on the wisdom and power of government, as on the character and virtue, self-reliance, industry and thrift of the people and on their willingness to meet the responsibilities essential to the preservation of a free society.

"When law is without order and  justice is far from just, someone must take a stand !"