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Peace at any cost is a prelude to war!
CONGRESS ACTION: January 9, 2000
=================
CUOMO KNOWS BEST: Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo
doesn't like the way Mayor Giuliani is spending New York's federal funds for
the homeless. So Cuomo simply grabbed $59 million of those funds, because
federal bureaucrats always know best. The alleged justification for the
siezure is the Mayor's refusal to continue funding the homeless activist
group Housing Works. A federal judge ruled that Giuliani's withholding of
those funds was improper, and so Cuomo stepped in and seized the money. That
Housing Works still cannot account for $500,000 from an earlier grant, and
that it engages in partisan political activity on the taxpayer's dime, fazed
neither the judge nor Cuomo in the least. Cuomo pontificated that "We cannot
allow federal funds to be politicized." No, indeed. Mismanaged, yes, wasted,
certainly; and only HUD is allowed to make political use of federal funds.
Take, for example, Cuomo's own much-touted "Community Builders" program,
envisioned as an urban Peace Corps. The program was so vague, costly, and
subject to political patronage, that HUD's own Inspector General recommended
that it be terminated ("The audit found problems with the Community Builders'
concept, its implementation, and its impact on HUD. In our opinion, HUD
should discontinue the Community Builder position. . The impact of Community
Builders is difficult to measure, when measurable. . The one clear effect.is
the dramatic increase in the number of people at HUD.owing their jobs to the
Department's political management." [emphasis added]) Now comes a new study
showing rampant financial waste and mismanagement among a plethora of
government programs, including, incidentally, Andrew Cuomo's HUD. One example
cited one housing authority that bought eight new Chevy Blazers for top
managers (no word on Al Gore's reaction to the use of taxpayer money to buy
gas-guzzling SUVs for government bureaucrats); hired a security firm that
employed 29 convicted felons; and after all that, received a new HUD grant of
$115 million for the construction of more housing units. But Washington
political appointee Cuomo knows better than New York's elected mayor how to
spend money for New York's homeless.
Supporters of campaign finance reform in the McCain-Feingold model should be
interested to see whether Hillary Clinton declares a $59 million campaign
contribution from Andrew Cuomo. Despite Cuomo's self-serving "We cannot allow
federal funds to be politicized" statement, he announced the money grab at a
democrat party event, endorsing Hillary Clinton's Senate candidacy as he did
so; a former top HUD official for the New York area is now Hillary's campaign
manager; and Cuomo's wife repeated the announcement of the money grab later
that day at another democrat party event. $59 million is a lot of political
patronage available to Hillary's campaign. But Giuliani would have had the
same advantage of doling out that $59 million if Cuomo had not taken the
money, wouldn't he? The difference, of course, is that Giuliani was elected
to a job which included distributing those funds, Cuomo has not been elected
to anything. But the Clinton political machine never lets little things like
the democratic process get in the way of power.
BIG BROTHER: Not to worry, assured Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, her
department's Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) does not plan
to search every home office to be sure that they comply with federal
regulations. But now that the issue has suddenly become the subject of a
national debate -- never mind that it was her own Soviet-style approach to
individual responsibility that made it the subject of a national debate in
the first place -- she has announced her intention to "open a dialogue about
the issue". The possible topics of discussion for this dialogue? How about:
Are home office workers too stupid to decide for themselves what level of
safety is appropriate in their own homes? Are home office workers likely to
kill themselves and burn down their homes without the advice of benevolent
federal bureaucrats? Which can lay claim to be the Supreme law of the land,
the United States Constitution or OSHA regulations? Can the Fourth Amendment
in the Bill of Rights be voided by regulatory fiat? To how many Americans
have the concepts of individual liberty and personal responsibility become so
foreign that they actually thought OSHA's plan was a good idea?
No, according to Herman, OSHA will not inspect home offices. That task will
be left by implication to employers, according to Herman's latest
pronouncements. Why? Because employers who have any employees working at home
are now in the cross-hairs of predatory trail lawyers. If a home worker trips
over a toy left on the stairs by his toddler and breaks his neck, who's he
going to sue? (Remember, there are no such things as "accidents" in this
country any more; if someone gets injured it has to be somebody's fault. And
not just any somebody -- such as that toddler -- but somebody with deep
pockets or insurance coverage. Such as the worker's employer.)
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized." (Fourth Amendment) What is the probable
cause to which the Fourth Amendment refers? The Bill of Rights requires
probable cause to believe that a crime was committed in order to search a
home, and OSHA originally proposed searching ALL home offices, whether or not
there was probable cause to believe that a specific crime had been committed.
Which must mean that OSHA believes the simple act of working at home is, in
and of itself, a crime justifying a search under the Fourth Amendment. And to
a major constituency of the democrat party, labor unions, working at home is
indeed akin to a crime. Labor unions hate the idea of people working at home,
so anything that makes working at home less attractive appeals to labor
unions. But one interesting aspect of this is that Herman has never been
viewed as particularly biased in favor of labor unions (no more than the
average liberal democrat, that is), and certainly is not considered to be as
slavishly devoted to labor unions as her predecessor Robert Reich. When she
was nominated, Herman was viewed favorably by some business groups, she was
not the top choice of union bigwigs, and her nomination was passed favorably
by the republican Senate labor committee. So what motivated Herman to even
think of suggesting such an outrageous intrusion by the federal government
into a person's home? The only alternative explanation, if working at home is
not itself deemed a crime by OSHA, is that those officials who promulgated
that policy must simply believe that the Constitution doesn't apply to them.
The fact that Herman is not rabidly pro-union may help explain why she so
quickly withdrew OSHA's assertion of jurisdiction over home workers. On the
other hand, all bureaucrats naturally seeks to extend the scope of their
fiefdom; and all leftists naturally seeks to extend government control over
everyone, especially over anyone who demonstrates any streak of independence.
That is in the very nature of their ideology. And what they cannot obtain in
one massive grab for power, they will try to obtain incrementally. And
therein lies the real danger behind this newest attempt to expand the reach
of Washington and further centralize the power of government.
We have just lived through a century which, for all its amazing advancements,
has also been notable for the extent of its barbarity. Particularly the
extent to which powerful centralized governments have oppressed their own
people. By one analysis, throughout the long history of mankind in the
centuries prior to the Twentieth Century, governments have killed a total of
about 133 million people. This figure includes warfare as well as domestic
oppression. But in the Twentieth Century alone, governments have slaughtered
between 170 million and 200 million of their own citizens. The Nazis were
comparative pikers in this dubious contest, accounting for a mere 10 million
of their own citizens and citizens of countries they occupied (this figure is
of civilian deaths only, and does not include combat deaths incurred by
military forces). The communist dictatorships of China and the Soviet Union
accounted for about 100 million civilian deaths of their own citizens,
between them, with the Soviet Union leading the way with about two-thirds of
that total. And what was it that all these murderous governments had in
common? Two features stand out: (1) they had strong central governments, with
power concentrated in a few hands; and (2) their populations were not
permitted to own firearms. And what are two of the major political debates
roiling the United States today? (1) How much power is it proper for our
central government to exercise, and a constant push among some for even more
centralized power; and (2) whether we should allow that central government to
attain a monopoly on force, by totally disarming the civilian population. It
should also be noted that those people in this country most insistently
pushing for ever more power to be lodged in the central government are the
same people most insistently demanding a disarmed civilian population, who
are the very same people who openly support socialism, who adore many of the
policies of communist China, and who in the past admired and defended the
Soviet Union.
Simply put, there are many people in this country who want to emulate the two
most murderous regimes ever to plague mankind, and, refusing to learn from
history, they are trying to institute some of the most dangerous policies of
those murderous regimes right here in the United States. They want a strong
central government in which power is concentrated in a few hands (preferably
the hands of unelected and therefore unaccountable bureaucrats), and they
want a defenseless population over which they can exert control without fear
of opposition. Those in this country who still value freedom should be
outraged at these attempts to oppress this country, the attempts to recreate
Moscow or Beijing on the Potomac. And those republican candidates who
understand the nature of our Constitution and the source of our liberty
should be outspoken in their condemnation of these pernicious efforts. But to
their discredit, they aren't. Rather than speak of the weighty matters of
freedom and restoration of the Constitution, about what have they been
speaking in their debates? Whether gays should serve openly in the military,
micromanaging political speech and debate and the money that goes into
campaigns, how much homage to class warfare they should pay when deciding how
much of our money we must pay in tribute to Washington, and the display of
Confederate battle flags.
The dangers posed by the current drift of our nation would be easily
recognizable to the Founders who wrote and ratified our Constitution. That
document was specifically designed to defend and preserve the freedom of the
people against government tyranny. But in their ignorance, large parts of our
population don't know that. And in their arrogance, large parts of our
population think they are wiser than those men 200 years ago because, they
tell themselves, what happened in Nazi Germany, in the Soviet union, in
communist China, could never happen here.
"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judicial in the
same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary,
self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of
tyranny." -- James Madison (Federalist # 47)
"...the advantage of being armed, which Americans possess over the people of
almost every other nation..." compared favorably with "...the military
establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe [where] governments are
afraid to trust the people with arms." -- James Madison (Federalist # 46)
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear
arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in
government." -- Thomas Jefferson
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