Kevin Craig for Congress: Christmas on the Potomac

Monday, April 14, 2008

Christmas on the Potomac

Tomorrow is the day millions of Americans play Santa Claus, by dropping down the Washington D.C. chimney, and leaving oodles of money for Beltway bureaucrats, which America's Santa Clauses have taken out of their own paychecks.

And unlike the December Santa, the April 15th Santas don't even bother checking to see if Washington has been "naughty or nice." Ten years ago, conservatives were complaining that the feds were more naughty than nice, especially those at the National Endowment for the Arts, who were putting on indisputably pornographic "stage plays" (Annie Sprinkle, who spread her legs onstage in a New York exhibition and asked audience members to view her vagina with a flashlight) and blasphemous "art" displays ("Piss Christ" by Adres Serrano, featuring Christ submerged in the author's urine) and other "works" featuring feces, sadomasochism, same-sex erotica, carcasses, severed heads, vomit, genitalia, and the desecration of sacred objects . Republicans promised to cut funding for the agency. Instead, they increased it. On December 26 of last year,

President George W. Bush signed an omnibus appropriations bill for FY 2008 that includes $144.7 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This represents an increase of $20.1 million over the 2007 funding level of $124.562 million. It is the largest dollar increase in the NEA appropriation since 1979....
Would the situation be better if the NEA were funding wholesome Christian art?

No.

April 15 represents the largest act of theft on the planet, committed by an arm of the institution which is unquestionably the most destructive criminal syndicate in human history: "The State."

Taking money from another human being under threats of force (fines, prison, execution) is the legal definition of theft, robbery, extortion. All taxation is immoral, a violation of the command "Thou shalt not steal."

Men like Paul Revere, Sam Adams, John Hancock, and other members of "The Sons of Liberty" threw tea into the Boston Harbor rather than pay a tax of 3 pence per pound. Ben Franklin said Americans only used about 10 pounds of tea a year. In contrast, Americans today use more than 10 gallons of gas with every fill-up, and say nothing about taxes TEN TIMES GREATER than the taxes imposed by the British.

America's Founders called it "tyranny." What would they call our government today?

They would be staggered. They would be outraged.

"Tax Day" is a good day to ask two questions:

1. What motivated America's Founders to oppose so little tyranny with such passion?

2. What motivates you to accept so much tyranny with such apathy?

These questions are so much bigger than "Who will you vote for: Obama or McCain?"

Here are my two answers to those questions:

1. CHARACTER
America's Founding Fathers were much better trained to discern good and evil than we are. In general, Americans 200 years ago had better character than we do. When they saw the first expression of evil and tyranny, they nipped it in the bud. "The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" were taught in every public school. Americans today blithely accept the most heinous forms of violence and debauchery, from our neighbors and from our government. We lack the character good Americans once had.

2. The unethical dream of getting “something for nothing.”
We pay our taxes only because we think we're going to get more in return than we pay. As if the government doesn't skim off their cut before sending it back to us with strings attached. We vote for the Congressman we think is shrewd enough to take more from the constituents of other Congressmen than he allows them to take from us. We're smart; they're stupid. We'll make a profit; they'll take a loss.

"The Government" is a huge con game. Only people of bad character fall for con games.

We accept tyranny, and hope to profit from mass, institutionalized systematic theft. And year after year, election after election, we believe the promises of politicians.

America's founders would probably not grace most of us with the title of "American."

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!
Samuel Adams, 1776

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