National Independence

Ahhhhh… national independence… quite the topic, eh? Thanks for the questions, anonymous. For those who have not read the response to the last post, here are the questions asked…

I would like to hear what your stance is on topics like true national indepence, ie. food and oil, national defence, energy consumption, the overpopulation of the prison system and other suc topics. take the time and think them over and get back to us. k?

Let’s see how much of this I can address in just one blog…

Here’s a topic that has easy solutions, but for some reason, the politicians would like us to believe that it is a very difficult topic to tackle. I say they're complete garbage. Imagine if the founding patriots of this great nation said gaining independence from the British Empire was too difficult. We cannot and must not accept what we are being told these days by the politicians and their media puppets! There is a great line from a movie that I have used when debating people for years now. It goes something like this…

This country was founded on the notion of “I can” and it’s people like you who have destroyed it with an “I can’t” attitude.

To me, this is much more than just a quote. It’s truth. And it can be true again if we not only believe it, but put it into practice as well. Case in point…


We are in a bind with our global trade plans. We have outrageous trade tariffs placed on our goods entering other countries, but those same countries can sell their items to us for next to nothing. Sure this is may seem like a good idea when you go to buy something at WalMart or Target, but it hurts us more than we realize by taking away so many jobs. If a U.S. based company cannot compete with companies in other countries for the sale of items here at home, they either go out of business or are forced to move to another country themselves. Either way, this means the loss of jobs at home and we cannot and must not let that happen any more. How do we stop it though, you ask? Reciprocate the trade tariffs is my answer. If we place the same tariffs on their items as they are placing on ours, we can compete with their prices and therefore keep the jobs here at home. Sure, a DVD player will cost a little more, but it’s a small price to pay for National independence. And if the jobs come back to the States, then people will make enough to be able to afford the items anyway. We could be the great nation again as we once were! I would, of course, gather a committee together to plan out a smooth transition into this so that we don’t go immediately to higher prices without the monetary compensation. But we would make it happen. Because this country will continue to run under the “I can” motto.

Now some would say that if we did that, then all the foreign interests (like the EU and China) lending us money every day for the budget deficit would stop lending it to us and that would cripple us as a country. My response to that is that it’s better to break those bad habits under our own terms than to always live in fear of them doing it to us someday. Our dollar has such little value right now anyway that it’s really pretty pathetic (yet another thing that the politicians have smokescreened for years and years). Better to say “enough is enough”, take a step back, and start over the right way back to the road to greatness. I realize that I have not yet addressed any of the questions asked, but this how I think I needed to start this topic. It all starts with the trade imbalance. Oh, by the way, trade tariffs would also go to bringing down the deficit, thereby keeping the amount of taxes needed from the National Sales Tax low (see my previous post on getting rid of the IRS and the annual tax procedure we have now and just go to a sales tax so all pay, i.e. legal citizens, illegal citizens, and tourists alike). Okay, let’s move on to food and oil…


We grow so much food in our own country and it goes to three places… 1) It goes to our own people for consumption, 2) It goes to other countries for consumption, or 3) It goes to waste. I think we need a good balance of the first two, and there needs to be such a good system in place that we diminish the amount that goes to waste. The problem with the first two, like I mentioned above, is that the trade is not fair. If we tariffed the incoming items, it would make our items more competitive in pricing and therefore our stuff won’t go to waste. Wasted food boils down to both wasted labor and wasted money. And as a result, being a farmer is harder than ever these days because they compete with countries who pay pennies a day for labor. It’s not fair to our guys and we need to change that. If we make it more competitive, then our farmers make more money. That keeps the money “in-house” instead of giving it to a country that will use the money to build weapons against us.

Now oil is a different subject altogether… It pretty much is out of control at this point. There have been designs to improve gas mileage since at least the 1970’s, but every time an invention is patented, the mega-oil companies buy the patent and never bring it to fruit because it would hurt their profits. Even now, with hybrid cars, it will create less of a demand on oil, so they offset that by raising the price of oil. That being said, however, I don’t know if the government should get involved in this issue. It makes it kind of suspicious when we are at war in a country full of oil while being given reasons that proved to be untrue. Every time oil issues are brought up in Congress, they are quickly dropped and the media doesn't mention anything about it. I don’t know why, but I have my guesses as to what happens behind closed doors. The way I see it playing out is they feel that they can charge as much as they want and we'll be slaves to their pricing, but we will eventually reach a breaking point and move on to another source of fuel. I personally think they are shooting themselves in the foot, but we’ll see. But do I think we need independence for oil? It's more that I don’t think we can have it. We consume way too much. If we went to in-house oil only, the price would skyrocket to amounts we can only dream of right now. I think we need to start in the other areas, like getting our country back under control in all of the other areas first, then worrying about oil. One last side note on this is that we drill here in the States for natural gas and we ship it out of our country. If they want to play hardball with prices for fuel, I say we return the hardball to their court with the natural gas. Just the birth of an idea for now, I’ll give it more thought.

Energy consumption? I think we are the leading country for energy consumption in the world (not sure how China is doing on that topic these days) and although I would honestly expect us to be, there are several things we can do, local laws that can be passed, to make things better. In Europe, when you stay at a hotel, you enter the room and place your room key in a device on the wall that engages the electricity for the room. How many times do we leave lights on in a hotel? Or the TV? Or the AC? Multiply that by the number of hotels in the U.S. and you’d get quite a bit of savings going on. And the number of lights left on at night is too much. I don’t need to see a Sears sign at night. It’s closed. Turn the lights off. They won’t do it though due to needing to compete with the advertising effects of it’s rivals leaving their lights on, so it would have to be a law. But I would leave that up to the communities to enforce that.

I would, however, like to pass legislation on a Federal level that would require the cars to be made with the ideas that I mentioned above that have been bought up and left to rot. Mandate that all new cars get 75 to 100MPG or that they use hydraulically stored power from braking to accelerate from a stop. If it can be thought up, it can be accomplished. Make all cars required to do the above by the year 2014 (which would be two years into my term). There would be no price gouging either because it would not be optional. Today, you can save gas money by buying a hybrid, but you’re paying more for the car instead, keeping the consumer from going hybrid, keeping the oil companies rich. That’s my current stand on energy consumption. If I missed the point or need talk about other things on top of these things, let me know anonymous.

Lastly (and quickly), National defense should be made in America. How can our secret weapons be a secret if they are being built by foreigners? No matter the cost difference between the labor, it is just plain stupid to do otherwise. There is no other way to put that I think.

I will post next time about the prisons and judicial system, but this is certainly enough for today. Have a great day everyone!

Rich