I would complain that it's an awfully tough task to follow Pastor Dull, but I have to do it every day at WRTA so I'm used to having the bar set higher than I'll ever be able reach. I do think it wonderful to hear him and Jim Woomer today describe so well our nation's promise and problems. Thank you, Gentlemen.
Let me also pass on my gratitude to the organizers and sponsors of this event for their dedication to the cause of liberty. We are joining over 1,000 groups across America this weekend who share our love of America and our concern for its future.The organizers and sponsors of Freedom Fest (what a beautiful name for a picnic!) are true heroes and I am very grateful for the opportunity to express my views on the grim news our nation faces.And I want to publicly thank today Dave and Becky Barger who are very much heroes in the cause of liberty. They provide daily at WRTA the platform of free speech for you and me (especially me) to express our opinions and maintain the dialogue that is essential for us to fight the good fight.Their firmness in speaking truth to power should be an inspiration for us all. And special thanks to all of you for making this a community of true patriots.
What is the grim news that I have to report? National talk radio host Michael Savage describes "the enemy within" as those people who would undermine the principles of life and liberty on which this country was founded.The grim news is that Savage is behind the times. Our nation's government and our state and local governments are already in the control of the people who seek to repeal our heritage, our morality, and our liberty. "Virtue, Liberty, and Independence" are three words that most definitely have gone out of style. The Imperious Ruling Class of whom I will talk shortly are most certainly in charge now and they are tireless in demonstrating that every day in every way.We who love liberty and stand up for life, We the People, we are now the enemy within.
How bad is it? In Ronald Reagan's famous Time for Choosing Speech 45 years ago, he worried that liberty was unsustainable with government spending approaching 1/3 of everything we earn.If only we could turn the clock back to those good times ;-) The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that the federal government this year, by itself, will spend 28% of GDP, the highest percentage at any time in our history except during WW II. With state and local government spending expected to take an additional 22% of GDP, we will soon be working more for the Imperious Ruling Class than we are for ourselves.
Reagan warned us, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction." Well, it's been one generation since the Gipper left office and it's positively scary how close to extinction freedom is in the Land of the Free. This is no longer the nation that George Washington and the champions of liberty bequeathed to us. The America that you and I once knew has been supplanted by a nation of socialists, headed by a ruling class of Republicans and Democrats who have by commission and omission put the real America into internal exile.
I call these folks the IRC, the Imperious Ruling Class.Now I don't mean to sound mean-spirited by calling them the Imperious Ruling Class. Not at all. IRC could also stand for Insolent Rapacious Commies or Idiotic Reprobates of Clue-less or the Invidious Repositories of Class-envy. There are other terms I could think of but I'll not go nasty—the IRC is simply the haughty and arrogant, who use the power of public office to make themselves masters of the public.
Who are these IRC and are you one of them? It might be useful, ala Jeff Foxworthy and with appropriate apologies to him, to identify who the IRC are.
If you watch Congressional and Supreme Court sessions to begin with a prayer, but think that prayer in schools is a danger to the Republic, you might be, IRC.
If you talk about imposing temporary tax increases when the Johnstown flood tax of 1936 is still on the books, you might be, IRC.
If you’re a county commissioner and run around the county begging school districts and municipalities to sue so you can raise the people's taxes without limit, you might be, IRC.
If you think Ted Kennedy (wait a minute, no need to make this personal), if you think some leftwing commie pinko Massachusetts senator who couldn't pop a pimple on his own gigantic butt, should be writing legislation to bring Castro Care to the United States, you might be, IRC.
(Okay, some of you are thinking, "McGinnis, you're butt isn't exactly on the small size." Yes, that's true, but there are two important differences between myself and the Massachusetts senator: 1) I can pop a pimple; 2) I don't want government popping yours.)
If, after America's been attacked by extremist militant Muslims, you think those who honorably and heroically served in the U.S. military are the real threats to our country, you might be, IRC.
If you swear an oath to execute the laws of PA, but ignore the one that requires you to have a budget in place by July 1 (six straight years), you might be, IRC.
If you see government at all levels grow at double the rate of inflation and wonder why we're in a worsening recession, you might be, IRC.
If you think legislators can repeal the laws of physics and economics, you might be, IRC.
If you, like Janeane Garafalo (Exhibit A of the proposition, "Liberalism is a mental disease"), think patriots having picnics in support for liberty is actually a KKK revival movement, you might be, IRC.
If you're a county commissioner or school board member and you claim your hands are tied even while you are reaching deeper into the pockets of the taxpayers, you might be, IRC.
If you think the government can borrow its way out of debt, you might be, IRC.
If you are a carbon-based life form and think that carbon ought to be outlawed, you might be, IRC and you're definitely N U T S nuts.
If you think that government can tax, borrow, and spend us into prosperity, you might be, IRC.
If you've never run a business, never met a payroll, never even worked in the for-profit sector, but think you can run the largest economy in the history of mankind, all of it, you might be, IRC.
If you think giving the full fruits of citizenship to illegal aliens and enemy combatants is sound public policy, you might be, IRC.
If you think laws that make energy more expensive will make America more competitive in the global economy, you might be, IRC.
If you're a member of Congress whose office received phone calls, faxes, and emails, 20 to 1 against TARP, but you voted YES because $150 billion of pork was added to the bill, you might be, IRC.
If you think a murderer has the right to life, but that an innocent child in utero can be exterminated as a matter of convenience, you might be, IRC.
If you've taken over the banking industry, GM, Chrysler, the tobacco industry, housing, and are planning to take over energy, education, and healthcare, and claim you've always been a strong supporter of free markets, you might be, IRC.
If you say we must abandon free markets to "save" free markets, you might be, IRC.
AND …
If you think that government is smart and the private sector dumb, that government office holders and bureaucrats are honorable and private citizens are not, that government is the solution and We the People are the problem, you might be, IRC.
So what now? I've heard many people say they are afraid for our country and I am too, but fear isn't going to get us anywhere. Let me suggest a radical, but proven course of action, one followed by the founders of America back in 1776.They too were the enemy within. 1/3 of the colonists were loyal to the king and another 1/3 didn't much care one way or the other.But the enemy within--Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and the other patriots--they heroically committed to a course of action to win their liberty, consequences be damned.It was no idle boast, nor exaggeration, when they signed the Declaration of Independence and pledged "their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor." And with such steadfastness to the principles of the Declaration of Independence (wonderfully exposited here today by Pastor Dull), they were able in the course of five years, to win their freedom, and within 6 more years, craft the single greatest framework of government in history for free people.
Yet, despite the many and clear parallels we see in America today with those of 1770s, there is a significant difference.America's founders were up against a monarch supported by the most powerful military of the time. They had a formidable task going up against King George, but it was a clear mission that could succeed even with 2/3 of their fellow citizens sitting on the sidelines. And they could get, and did get, help from outside America.Our situation, however, is more difficult in the sense that it's not an abusive monarchy that's the heart of our problem: that would provide a very straightforward problem to deal with. The easy part of our task will be voting the IRC out of office. (And the sooner the better!) But the bigger problem, far harder to deal with, is the abuse from our fellow citizens, who instead of respecting and cherishing freedom believe that government should be providing them with education, healthcare, trade protection, business subsidies, and welfare of every shape and dehumanizing kind.It will be in vain to remove the elected officials of corruption if we don't remove their enablers.If we tolerate the notion that government is in the business of "spreading the wealth around", we might as well re-write the Constitution to read, We the Sheep, instead of We the People.
Now when I say we need to remove the enablers of socialism, our fellow citizens, I'm not suggesting actual liquidations, imprisonment, or anything violent (unless the names Rendell or Specter come up). Quite the contrary. We have to win over our fellow Americans peacefully to the virtues and blessings of liberty through the power of prayer, persuasion, and persistence. A genuine P3, not the phony kind some people buy into. Prayer, persuasion, persistence.We have the truth on our side, a compelling age-old truth that nonetheless is always in jeopardy: Man was meant by God to live free with the responsibility of taking the consequences of his actions. Ronald Reagan said it best, "… there is no such thing as left or right. There's only up or down: up to … the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ash heap of totalitarianism.
To triumph in freedom, we must be the enemy within going forward, steadfast to the principles of life and liberty on which America was founded.To resurrect our heritage will entail sacrifice, but as Thomas Paine wrote, "The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." All of us are now have the opportunity to be heroes in the recrudescence of American liberty. These will be glorious times.
This day we declare responsibility for our future (no more saying, "Somebody needs to do something," but rather, "I will to do something, I will stand up for liberty"), This is the path of asserting our rightful sovereignty rather than submitting to the dictates of the IRC, who see themselves as our masters.We do not need masters or fuhrers or duces or czars. (Please, no more czars!)
Shall we be hopeful this day? Yes, but not the phony kind of hope labeled audacious.Hope is not audacious. It is resilient, it is measured, it is realistic.It leads to liberty in conjunction with faith and love.
Shall we be hopeful this day? What other course of action can a person of integrity take? Despair is not an option. We will win this struggle to restore liberty and morality in our nation, because only the abyss of despotism and evil await if we don't.We can take heart from H.L. Mencken: It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined people and a sound cause. And what sounder cause is there than liberty?
Shall we be hopeful this day? I am privileged in my profession to see young people on a regular basis and I see great young people here today. They will gravitate to the philosophy of liberty if they hear it and see it in action.And with your leadership and their enthusiasm, we will win back America.
Shall we be hopeful this day?40% of Americans identified themselves in a recent Gallup poll as being conservative.I have no doubt we can effect significant positive change with sustained effort in the very near term. However, it could well take longer than the next several years.
In fact, the full restoration of American liberty may not even happen in our lifetimes. Does that sound discouraging?When I get discouraged I think of the folks who have paid the ultimate price, the last full measure of devotion, for our liberty. How can we sully their sacrifice by giving into despair and discouragement? How can we do any less than push as hard as we can for as long as we can to bring back the America invented in 1776?
A great hero of mine is Ludwig von Mises, a Jew forced out his Austrian homeland by the Nazis in the 1930s. He settled in America to do the greatest work in the history of economics only to be ignored by mainstream economists who were intent on expanding government control of the economy. Despite the costs, personally and professionally, he consistently adhered to the economic truth that liberty is the best economic policy. Well, he never won accolades in his lifetime with that argument and when he died in 1973 he was dismissed as a crank because he claimed communism was unsustainable and government intervention in the economy is always counter-productive. You might think that such a man of principle and genius would have eventually given up and turned cynical, but Mises's motto is what we all should commit to: Never give into evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it. Let all of us proceed ever more boldly against the evils of our day.Let us be ever mindful of the eloquent advice of George Washington, who coupled hope with faith when he said: "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The rest is in the hands of God."
Thank you for your kind attention and may we all go forth and, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."
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