Through the early 1980s, socialist Latin American economies powered growth by quadrupling their indebtedness from $75 billion to $315 billion. With aristocrats controlling government, while the poor had no voice in these loan matters, nor did they benefit from them as most of the loan proceeds were siphoned off to benefit the aristocrats and their crony amigos.

When Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, the U.S. economy had suffered a decade of stagflation, turning our Midwest manufacturing base into the Rust Belt. Reagan was determined to regain international economic dominance by reasserting our Founding Father’s demand for limited government and maximum personal liberty. Reagan viscerally believed what John Adams wrote:

“ the moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence”

Reagan’s relentless focus overcame the bi-partisan drumbeat to continue the socialist expansion of the money supply to promote growth. He then leveraged monetary restraint with the largest income tax cut in American history to power the American economy to sustained growth with low inflation.

The inflated prices of raw material exports that Latin American socialists relied upon to pay their inflated debts, plunged by 40%. Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina became insolvent as per capita GDP fell by 9% between 1980 and 1985 and 50% of their people fell into poverty. Popular uprisings drove Brazil’s military junta and Argentine’s authoritarian regime, from power. In desperation, Latin nations turned to the U.S. dominated International Monetary Fund as lender-of- last-resort. But IMF support came with mandatory demands for austerity budget cuts, public industry privatizations, and elimination of trade barriers to shrink socialist power. By 1987, the capitalist U.S. economy was the world’s growth engine and a tidal wave of foreign investment was pouring into capitalist friendly Latin economies. World socialism was in shambles as the Soviet Union disintegrated and China embraced the market economy. The release of the Brundtland Report was seen as recognition of the burgeoning capitalist globalized economy.

By 1992 memories of the pain of the Latin American Debt Crisis were fading. Aristocrats repackaged socialist plans to again usurp economic power into Agenda 21 and introduced this socialist manifesto at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Agenda 21 envisioned bestowing the UN, government bureaucracies, and major interest groups the power to suspend the rights of property under law regarding all global, national and local human economic and social interaction that might affect the environment.

Agenda 21’s four main pillars of action are (1) combating poverty, promoting health, making consumption sustainable (2) assuring atmospheric protection, protecting fragile environments, conserving biodiversity, preventing pollution and regulating biotechnology (3) strengthening the roles of children, youth, women, NGOs, local authorities, workers and indigenous peoples (4) through science, technology transfer, education, international financial mechanisms.”

European aristocrats also quietly embedded Agenda 21 powers into the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, which united 17 sovereign nations under the three pillar structure of the European Union (1) prevent sovereign debt from exceed 60% of GDP (2) delegate authority to supranational decision makers authority to regulate all human economic and social interaction that might affect the environment (3) embrace the euro as their supranational currency.

With aristocratic socialists in control of supranational economic decision making, deficit spending became the preferred stimulus for European economic growth. From 1999 to 2008, the average debt to GDP for Eurozone nations grew from 50% to 70%. But as the Reinhart and Rogoff’s book: “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” famously warned in early 2009; “once a nation’s debt rises above the threshold of 90%, then growth rates fall.”

When Greece hit over 100% of debt to GDP later that year, rumors swirled the nation would default. Greek GDP shriveled and panicked depositors across Europe pulled their cash out of banks and the European Debt Crisis exploded. Total Eurozone debt now stands at a dangerous 87% of GDP and Greek short term interest rates are at 1400%. Supranational committees are enforcing austerity spending cuts, but the unemployment rate is at a depression level of 20% in Greece and 23% in Spain.

There is no Reaganesque figure today in Europe willing to battle entrenched aristocratic socialists in support of limited government and maximum personal liberty. Instead, the “present” generation of Europeans will continue to be impoverished until a future generation becomes unwilling to endure life of a debt slaves and violently over-throws their aristocratic masters.

Feel free to forward this Op Ed and or follow our Blog at www.chrissstreetandcompany.com

Only 12 percent of all 12^th graders are “proficient” or “advanced” in U.S. History according to the 2010 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).  And less than half of all high school seniors display even a “basic” knowledge about American History.

The latest NAEP scores for civics are almost as bad:  Less than two-thirds of all seniors show a “basic” understanding of our system of government.  And a 2010 study commissioned by the American Enterprise Institute concluded that “civics, once the cornerstone of public education, has fallen off the radar” as teachers have felt increasing pressure to show progress in other areas.

That many educators today give considerable attention to other subjects would not disturb America’s founders.  While we tend to think of them largely as political figures, America’s founders recognized that there are many higher and grander pursuits in life than those in the political realm.

This no doubt explains why the scientifically-curious Ben Franklin went outside in a thunderstorm with his kite – and why the educationally-minded Thomas Jefferson had his gravestone identify him as the founder of the University of Virginia, but not as the third president of the United States.

Still, the founders considered it critically important for America to have “an informed citizenry.”  As James Madison noted, “A people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

Moreover, the founders saw the study of civics as foundational to other pursuits.  “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy,” John Adams once observed.  “My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”

In essence, Adams was saying that all of the higher and grander pursuits of a civilization – whether in the arts, the sciences, or in commerce – depend on a stable political foundation that protects and ensures artistic, intellectual, and commercial freedom.

This isn’t to say that the affairs of state are always or ultimately more important than other things.  It’s simply to say that every artist, farmer, poet, businessman, geographer, musician, and architect needs to acquire a keen understanding of why our political system has fostered greater human flourishing than any other political system in history.  (There is, after all, a reason North Korea doesn’t produce great art – and it isn’t because Koreans lack creativity.)

What is so troubling, then, about growing student ignorance of history and civics is that the American way of life depends on each new generation embracing our founding ideals and committing themselves to self-government.  In this regard, our freedom to pursue happiness is far more fragile than many Americans might imagine.

Thankfully, a growing number of Americans are awakening to the need to help the Sam Cookes of this generation develop an appreciation for America’s history and founding ideals.  In Florida, for example, the State Legislature has recently adopted requirements that middle schoolers take a semester of civics and that high schoolers study the Declaration of Independence during Celebrate Freedom Week.

Still, more attention to the social studies is needed.  For as John Adams understood, all of the higher and grander pursuits we enjoy as Americans are dependent upon a political system that secures our freedoms.

William Mattox is a resident fellow at The James Madison Institute in Tallahassee.

He is, at heart, an ardent believer that the wealth of a nation’s citizenry is in the end the property of their government into which the haves pay and bureaucrats then distribute out as social justice in the form or largess to the have-nots.  His increasing vibe of anger, that seems to conversely rise as his poll numbers fall, reveals to me a rather petulant man, unable to grasp the notion that he may not actually be the smartest guy in the room (despite the assurances of his orbiting satellites of sycophants in and out of  the MSM media) and that there are those who disagree with him not because they haven’t heard his message, but rather because they have and have found it wanting.

I found myself listening to his speech and thinking that I’d heard most of it before.  Most but not all.  One new tact that the historian in me found fascinating, and quite cynical, was his reaching down into the soil of Mount Vernon to summon the ghost of our most esteemed first president, George Washington, to help make his case.  Mr. Obama offered up this snippet from Washington’s September 19, 1796 Farwell Address to the nation to bolster his tax raising stance:

“…towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; and no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.”

Here is how Mr. Obama’s speech-writers interpreted our first president’s advice,   Said our current president:

“It’s always more popular to promise the moon and leave the bill for after the next election or the election after that.  That’s been true since our founding.  George Washington grappled with this problem.  He understood that dealing with the debt is — these are his words – ‘always a choice of difficulties.’  But he also knew that public servants weren’t elected to do what was easy; they weren’t elected to do what was politically advantageous.”

I wonder if anyone in the Obama administration studied history because to reach back to Washington to support, in effect, raising already burdensome income taxes to sustain a massive federal bureaucracy and social welfare state is about as far a reach as one can stretch before toppling over into the abyss of utter nonsense.

In 1796 the federal government over which Washington presided was infinitesimally small when juxtaposed against today’s behemoth in size, power and scope of responsibilities—as the Framers originally intended—especially Washington who was quite leery of a powerful state, having just waged war against a distant yet overbearing central authority in London.

Interestingly, Mr. Obama never mentions that in Washington’s day there was no income tax as we know it.  The revenues to which Mr. Washington referred were in the form of, as explicitly stated the Article I, Section 8, Clause I, “taxes, duties, imposts and excises…but all duties [explicitly defined by contemporary Luther Martin as ‘duties on stamps, parchment, and vellum’], imposts [customs], and excises [consumption, such as wines, manufactured goods] shall be uniform throughout the United States.”  In short, tariffs and consumption taxes provided the federal government what it needed.

Although the idea of what may loosely resemble our post-1913 concept of an income tax had been floated for many years (as deemed “necessary and proper” by Hamilton in Federalist 33) and could be excused in the generic “taxes” language cited, Washington was most probably loathe to the idea of direct taxes on the wealthy (like himself) levied by a powerful central authority to then be used to sustain a multi-trillion dollar entitlement state trillions in the red and getting worse.  Such a notion I think would have been as impossible for him and his peers to imagine as space travel…even for statists like Hamilton.

Let’s take a look at Washington’s entire paragraph from which Obama’s speech-writers cherry-picked soothing words…under the assumption I guess that most Americans would take his “Washington was pro-taxes too” stance at face value.  Washington’s full quote is hardly an endorsement of either the president’s stimulus policies or even his vision of the role of government in our lives.  Here is what Washington said first:

“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit.  One method of preserving it, is to use it sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense, by cultivating peace, but remembering also, that timely disbursements, to prepare for dangers, frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it;  avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous assertions, in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidably wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden, which we ourselves ought to bear.”

So what we see is Washington’s vision of a federal government whose primary role is national defense; it certainly was not the redistribution of wealth through the machine of a massive federal government.  For the Framers, the U.S. tax code (what there was of it then) existed to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.  It was not to be an engine from which detached bureaucrats could use the public treasure to mete out their vision of social justice through income and benefits redistribution.

Also we see from Washington’s (omitted) remarks a man who would have been appalled by Obama’s spending spree over the past two years–and, to be fair, other presidents’ before him.  And, in all likelihood, even more repelled by a confiscatory income tax apparatus, imposed by a hectoring IRS, through which to pay for it.

Obviously the world has turned over many times since Washington offered his sage advice to the nation in 1796, and what was once considered unimaginable federal overreach in his day has become entitlement and, for many, the accepted role, even duty, of the centralizes state in our daily lives.  But nonetheless the debate as to how broad or narrow the government’s power and influence should be within these new parameters still rages.  Mr. Obama clearly sees an America in which the federal government continues to play the central role in delivering social justice, and it is the wealthy’s duty to support his vision by turning over an even larger portion of the fruits of their labor, the percentage to be set by him, over to Washington for proper dispensation.   Whether or not this vision will come to pass I do not know.  But one thing I believe I can say with utter confidence is that the first man to occupy the office would certainly not support Mr. Obama’s efforts to perpetuate his failing presidency and stubborn adherence to a failed economic and political dogma, financed on the backs of the very people this country needs most to pull us out of this economic morass.  Perhaps he should study Washington more before offering him up as a supporter of redistribution of wealth and running up the credit card even more to support his next stimulus and financially ruinous welfare state.   Washington’s memory deserves better than this.

The authority of the people is made clear in at least three respects in the Constitution, and their vitality is powerfully suggested in a fourth. First, the Constitution holds both the lawmakers and the executive accountable to the people through elections, whether direct or indirect. The foremost depository of the people’s will is obviously the House of Representatives, whose members are directly elected every two years. According to James Madison writing in The Federalist, every constitution is designed to find rulers with the wisdom and virtue to pursue the common good and to make sure those rulers remain virtuous while holding the public trust. Elections are the means to both of those ends. In other words, if those in office lose their virtue, they can be thrown out of office by the people through regular elections. The people are the true source of term limits.

Second, the Constitution embraces, indeed creates, the system known as federalism. Not only can the people exert their authority through elections at the federal (national) level, they can also throw their support behind the state governments against federal encroachment. The chief means of doing so in the original Constitution was through the Senate, whose members were elected by state legislatures. Indeed, the Framers of the Constitution originally thought that the people’s loyalties would lie overwhelmingly with the states, not the remote national government. Their opinion owed to the history of the Revolution—in which the states were extremely jealous of their powers; the confidence that men of great talents and ambitions at the national level would devote their energies to the high pursuits of “commerce, finance, negotiation, and war,” to quote Hamilton in The Federalist, not with local concerns; and the general tendency of human nature to prefer the things closest to us. (Not many people living in Dallas root for the Steelers.) To this end, should the national government extend its powers beyond those enumerated in Article I, section 8, the Senators—whose loyalties lie, and whose careers are made, not in the national capital but in the state capitals—would defend the prerogative of the states and thereby the liberties of the people.

Third, for the Constitution to be adopted, it was imperative that the first Congress adopt a Bill of Rights to be appended to it. The Bill of Rights, authored mostly by Madison, was meant to serve as an education to the people in what their rights are and an encouragement to them to guard those rights jealously. It is also abundantly clear what would be the greatest threat to their rights. The Bill of Rights begins with the words “Congress shall make no law respecting” and ends with the words “or to the people.” That is, the greatest threat to liberty would come from government—though republican—exceeding its constituted authority and encroaching on the rights of the people.

Finally, there is the latent suggestion in the Constitution that the people will be doing the vast majority of the work in civil society, and the government will be needed chiefly to establish the rule of law, to protect the society from internal and external enemies, and to set up a system of uniform commercial exchange.

One way of reading the vital Article I, section 8 and also the Bill of Rights is to turn the question around by asking not what the national government will be doing but rather what the people will be doing. “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States”: Americans will be engaging in a vibrant commerce. “Securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”: Americans are going to be writing furiously and inventing things all the time. “To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas”: American shipping will cover the globe. “An establishment of religion”: Americans will be going to church—or not—as they decide. “Freedom of speech, or of the press”: They will be talking a lot and writing, mostly about politics. All of these pursuits—highly regulated in regimes of the past—this new man called the American was allowed and expected to undertake on his own initiative.

And what about education and the family and poverty and people’s health and jobs? Didn’t the Founding Fathers care about those things? Of course they did. They wrote about such matters extensively and founded institutions to promote what they called virtue and to meliorate what today we would call “social problems.” At the same time, they also knew where such issues were best handled: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The Founding Fathers showed an unprecedented confidence in human beings by setting up a frame of government that would protect life and liberty and allow the people to attend to their own pursuits of happiness. In other words, they introduced into the world true self-government.

What happened? It is a sad, century-long story. Simply put, the 17th Amendment killed federalism, and the 16th Amendment opened up our pockets. The Progressive Democrats were able to debauch our understanding of rights to such an extent that the nation was prepared by 1944 to accept F.D.R.’s “Second Bill of Rights,” really a list of entitlements provided to “all” by the federal government appropriating property from some. (Big Government became our friend and the provider of rights, not the potential threat to rights.) For about a hundred years We the People have been happy enough to re-elect Congressman Bacon and Senator Pork, believing in every district in the land that “Congress is corrupt, but our Congressman: he’s a good guy.” And, frankly, the people have steadily become less self-reliant, welcoming federal budgets stuffed with every conceivable “aid,” “program,” and handout from welfare to corporate welfare to federal subsidies for “green jobs” to the local park that was “supported” with federal funds. And so now we are bankrupt.

But the game is not up. The Tea Party has not only energized the electorate against Obama and the Democrats. The movement is genuinely devoted to recovering our understanding of and loyalty to the Constitution. For this reason—not, I think, because the candidates have come up with these ideas on their own—we are seeing serious discussions about Social Security and federalism and the outrage of federal mandates. We need to see more.

Who knows? 2012 may be the year—one hundred years after the election of the first anti-Constitutional president—that the nation wakes up and reminds itself of the basic axiom of republican government, as stated by Madison, “that the ultimate authority . . . resides in the people alone.” The liberty of Americans over the long haul demands that We the People return to the principles of true self-government.

“War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he will fight, nothing that is more important than his own personal safety is a more miserable creature and has no chance of ever being free unless by the efforts of greater men then himself. “

-John Stuart Mill

I read this quote in the past couple days and it struck me square in the face. The ideology of modern western thought was forged on the American continent from the effort and struggle to survive that imbued us with a fierce sense of independent thought and rugged individualism culminating with the DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE and the birth of a nation. This is what the Declaration of Independence was talking about in the first paragraphs. All people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”. It is so obvious the writers of this document had deep values precious to them and worth capturing on paper.

At this point in history, monarchies monopolized governments in countries around the world. And our colonies were ruled by leadership more than 3,000 miles away …. But everyone has their limit, right?

The early Americans had been taxed and humiliated by unjust laws and ignorant leadership. Colonial Americans knew what was being done to them was wrong and they felt ANYTHING was better than what was happening to them. So, they chose to stand for a simple notion: Man is in control of his own destiny.

Liberty and the American way have blossomed from this day in history. The Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution as a whole have been the bane of existence for tyrants and dictators in countries around the world since. Our forefathers’ actions set the tone around the world for people to stand up for what is good and right. And to also believe anything is possible if the cause is just and true.

This day is the flashpoint for American Exceptionalism — before it was even called American Exceptionalism, termed by De Toqueville. In putting their names on the bottom of the Declaration, these men knew they were signing their death warrants. It took some khutz-fa to stand up and make the stand against tyranny. They stood up for their guiding principles, and fought battles for years to come on shoeless, bloody feet.

True patriots fought losing battles just to keep this idea alive. This perseverance provided a glimpse of hope and freedom to people around the world making other oppressive rulers take note. The message: Treat people better or be overthrown.

The fact is Americans then and now are special. We are Exceptional. In colonial times, we pulled off something unthinkable by daring to dream it was within our reach. And this is a vibe we need to keep alive today … our change is within our reach. It is obtainable if we persevere.

Let’s take the values of revolutionary times and compare them to what we have today. Do we resemble anything our ancestors could be proud of? Could we measure up to the standards and morals we would deem righteous for an American people?

Do we teach or even know what American fundamentals are? When it is uncomfortable and not the easy thing to do, do we stick to our principles or do you let things slide? Are you the rock of sound judgment people will emulate and respect? Are you the one who will make the tough decision when it is the least popular? Do you have something you are willing to fight for other than the immediate safety of your family? If someone is doing wrong, do you say something? If a politician or a government is getting overbearing like the days of old, do you make a stand?

On a personal philosophy, ethical level, there should be something you’re willing to stand for: Something drawing a line in the sand — no take-backs! … Something we can call American Values.

For too long, we have let the rest of the world and anti-American Americans define us. If we don’t fight for our values, and live by them, who are we? There will be nothing that matters left and therefore, nothing to fight for. When we reach that point, others start dictating our world view and our core beliefs. Then, manipulation is the rule of the day because nothing has purpose, meaning or passion attached to it.

Americans used to be people who stood for justice and goodness and fought the oppressors wherever they were. This was our stereotype. We were seen as a country that was hearty, strong, just, innovative and GOOD! Of course we have our skeletons in our closets but that is not a reason to dislike America. Learning from these mistakes and skeletons are what makes us unique, GET OVER IT! Next! … If your mind is fixated on the events in the last engagement, you will die in the next.

People who do not believe in what our country is founded on seem to want to focus on the negative and what’s evil among us. Do you really think Americans are bad? Fences are to keep people out … not in. Seems like simple logic …

The lesson here is to stand for something. Americans throughout history have stood on the world stage and put there lives, fortunes and sacred honor on the line to further what they knew to be right and equal justice for all. We have even saved the world a couple times. We are the America that you used to read about and you would see in comic books. If you want to really hear about America … Ask someone in the service or a legal immigrant.

Today is the day we should be beaming with pride and love for our neighbors because there still is an America worth fighting for.

Remember the sacrifices our forefathers took in the dark days of the revolution for at least a moment before you crack open that beer and throw a couple hot dogs on the grill because if our forefathers hadn’t done what they did, we might be eating ‘bangers and mash’, have bad teeth and speak with a snotty accent (although I do like Pith helmets….)

Whatever U.S. policy is—and currently, it appears that even the President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense cannot get on the same page, let alone develop a united strategy with allies—it needs to be guided by only one thing: what is in the security interests of the United States of America? Our Founders, both in the Constitution and in their actions governing the early Republic, spoke clearly on how to deal with such overseas adventures. While the threats may be current, they are neither new nor unique.

First, it is critical to understand that virtually all of the Founders had served in the military at one time or another and most of them had actually seen combat. These were not wild-eyed dreamers, nor pacifists. They knew blood; they knew struggle. Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Knox, Livingston, Greene, Randolph, and many more had seen war up close, and none of the Founders believed in disarmament. Their only disagreements came over whether militias could be whipped into shape quickly enough to defend the nation. Jefferson, one of the last to come around, finally admitted the need for a U.S. military academy to train officers.

Second, while the phrase “entangling alliances” is commonly thrown out by some conservatives as a warning against any alliances, the fact is that the U.S. had benefitted greatly from an “entangling” alliance with France. Washington’s warning, in his Farewell Address, warned against “permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations.” Put simply, he believed people were capable of change. But then Washington made clear that Europe had different interests than our own—and that, indeed, the U.S. did have national interests. He argued for a standing army to protect those interests. It is all the more odd, then, that Washington (and John Adams) paid tribute, or bribes, to the Barbary Pirates to prevent them from seizing our shipping. But in the meantime Adams began construction of our first blue-water navy, which was completed in time for his successor, Thomas Jefferson to use it. When the Bey of Tripoli engaged in the time-tested declaration of war (back then, cutting down the U.S. flag), Jefferson did not hesitate a moment to send the entire U.S. fleet—without a declaration of war—to not only eliminate the Bey himself, but to take out any of his allies whether those states had declared war on the U.S. or not!

The message was clear: even the most pacifist of Founders would act in the national interest; that the clearly defined enemy would be removed; and that so long as his replacement was no threat to the United States, it was none of our business who took over. What would Washington and Jefferson say about Libya? They already said it. Take out Khaddafi, quickly. Make certain that his successor is no enemy of the U.S.. Then inform other powers in the region that the same fate awaits them if they in any way ally with our enemies. Jumping ahead to 2001, the Founders’ positions seem remarkably in line with most of those delineated in the Bush Doctrine.

Plus, the Sears catalog! And we use the word “mountebank” post-ironically!

Merry Christmas to all of you fine and decent people of all faiths, or lack of them. I’m proud to share the same country with all of you.