Chuck Norris, film and television actor, as well as an author will now has a regular column at Human Events as well Townhall.com . Here is a sampling from a recent article – Honey, I Shrunk the Congress! …
I think it’s time to let Congress feel our election fury this November. As reflected in the latest Rasmussen Reports, “Just 9 percent (of Americans) say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.” It is the first single-digit approval rating for Congress in Rasmussen’s history, and it makes Bush’s 30 percent approval rating seem like a stat to boast. The study went on to explain:
“Just 12 percent of voters think Congress has passed any legislation to improve life in this country over the past six months. That number has ranged from 11 percent to 13 percent throughout 2008.” …
If members of Congress are not relevant or improving Americans’ lives, why do we elect and re-elect them into office?! …
We have more representatives than we need and even many more than the Constitution requires. … Actually, the proper number of representatives from each state has been debated since our Founders‘ time. The Constitution endeavors to assure fairness and equity by requiring each state to have at least one representative, two senators and representation in the Electoral College. (At the other extreme, it states, “The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand.”) So why not go with the fewest number allowed? …
The current numbers in the House are stacked in discriminatory ways. For example, California has a large liberal voice with its 53 representatives. How fair is that for smaller, more conservative states that have between one and five representatives in the House? I believe just as we have one governor per state, we should consider reducing Congress to one representative and two senators per state (the minimum the Constitution requires). If one representative works for Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming, why can’t it work for the rest of the states?
I agree with the rationale of James Madison, a member of the Continental Congress and our fourth president, who advocated keeping the number of representatives within limits:
“Nothing can be more fallacious, than to found our political calculations on arithmetical principles. Sixty or seventy men, may be more properly trusted with a given degree of power, than six or seven. But it does not follow, that six or seven hundred would be proportionally a better depositary. And if we carry on the supposition to six or seven thousand, the whole reasoning ought to be reversed.”
And here is the part of Mr. Norris’ article I like the best –
If we follow Madison’s advice and have fewer representatives, then they couldn’t put the blame for their incompetence upon other members of Congress. There would be less gridlock. They probably would get more done. Plus financially speaking, reducing Congress would save us at least $200 million, if you consider all their staff, overhead, travel, pension plans and other perks. And if we didn’t like how the few represented us, we would have an easier time correcting their voices or disposing of them. Just a thought.
And, since Mr. Norris mentions “perks”, how about this one? –
Congressional members receive retirement benefits after only one term in office. And what do the American people get? Social Security, where you spend your working life forced to provide funding for the “locked” fund and not only does the government dip into that “locked” fund, but they tell you how to collect, when to collect it, and how much you will get. And when you finally start receiving your social security checks, it is reduced by the unfair tax system called income tax. Forget the expensive and subject to abuse/corruption act of “free” prescriptions for the elderly, just give them the money they put in plus interest tax free. And, if the retired individual wishes to take on a job while collecting his/her Social Security checks – don’t take it away telling the American retired people that they “made too much” and take back some of the money that is yours to begin with.
Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.
P.J. O’Rourke
I care about our young people, and I wish them great success, because they are our Hope for the Future, and some day, when my generation retires, they will have to pay us trillions of dollars in social security.
Dave Barry
Will some reporter, or some Republican on the Sunday shows, please ask why tax cuts raid the non-existent Social Security Trust Fund but all the Democrats’ new spending doesn’t? Will someone please ask that?
Rush Limbaugh
It is long time overdue that we send the majority of pompous assess taking up valuable space back home to follow some other career, a move that would not afford them opportunities to feed people bull manure and treat the people like mushrooms. Congress has been passing the buck for every presidency – blaming every president for things they are responsible for. Case in point – a majority “Nay” vote for expanding American crude oil opportunities. But let us not let any of the presidents, including the one sitting in the White House now – they have veto power, and that power is useless if they don’t use it. And telling the media and the American people that he (President GW Bush) is using the system in regards of not vetoing an obviously bad piece of legislation that should not have passed those in Congress that truly adhere to and honor the Constitution – letting the so-called Campaign Finance Reform Act pass; and what Bush meant was that he was passing the buck on to the Supreme Court to make a decision. We all know how THAT works.
If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?
Thomas Jefferson
President Harry Truman had a placard upon his desk in the Oval Office that read:
THE BUCK STOPS HERE
Chuck Norris:
Bottom line: It is “we the People” who have power over the government, not them over us. They are called to protect our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, not vice versa. And if they don’t, the Declaration of Independence states, in no uncertain terms, that we are “to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for (our) future Security.” It’s time to replace most members of Congress with “new Guards” who do the following:
Uphold the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.
Jamin Raskin
Protect Americans’ inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Promote less government.
Government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem . . . We’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no group singled out to pay a higher price.
Ronald Reagan
Fight for fewer taxes.
. . . Government, unless held in check, grows slowly and inexorably. And a government that has no limits, no constitutionally drawn boundaries, soon becomes the master and the citizens become heavily taxed workers little more than slaves. … Most of all, those early Americans understood that liberty is fragile. To give any distant body of elites the power to tax and spend to stay in power promises corruption and a Leviathan government more interested in concentrating power for itself than in protecting the rights of its citizens.
Matthew Robinson
Demand balanced budgets.
A billion here, a billion there —- pretty soon it all adds up to be real money.
Everett Dirksen
Secure our borders.
The flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.
Thomas Jefferson [letter to John Adams, September 12th 1821]
Reduce our national deficit, debts and dependence upon other nations.
My hope is that we continue to do an even better job in terms of our nation’s energy policy, so that we may even further reduce our reliance on foreign sources of oil and take better care of our environment in the process.
John M. McHugh
And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.
Thomas Jefferson
It is not how much legislation is passed in Congress, which seems to be a primary concern on the congressional floor nowadays, but quality legislation that was well thought out, passed the scrutiny of congressional law, and was looked at from both a short term and long term prospective. Our elected officials in Congress must think quality not quantity – a lesson learned as a short-term car salesman surrounded by those who only thought of how much they could make
It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison [Federalist No. 62, 1788]
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.
Thomas Reed
When legislation passes in the Senate by an overwhelming 90-9 vote, it is often a sign that it is either meaningless fluff or a bad idea. The McCain ‘anti-torture’ amendment, which passed by such a wide margin in an initial test of strength and which will be up for debate again soon, is both. Rich Lowry
Apparently, passing the buck is one of GW Bush’s dysfunctional habits.
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
James Madison [part of speech at the Virginia constitutional convention, December 2nd 1829]
Chuck Norris:
Disappointment with modern-day government and the preservation of our Founders’ America is exactly why I’ve just completed my book “Black Belt Patriotism,” which you can pre-order now on Amazon.com. It will be released in September through Regnery Publishing. It is my critique of what is destroying our country and how we can rebuild it and restore the American dream. I wrote the book because, as that famous “Network” line goes, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Fellow Americans, you don’t have to open your window and scream I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!; however, you can certainly relay this to your representatives and senators. If America is going to get back on track with real intention of reforming, it is We the People that need to make it happen. We need another American Revolution, and instead of bullets we need cooperation, unity, involvement from local to federal government and ways it conducts business and belief in the democratic republic system that our Founders worked so hard to create – and take upon ourselves OUR responsibilities as American citizens to ensure that elected officials perform their responsibilities. For how can we possibly gripe about responsibility of congressional members and presidents if we have the mentality that it is more important to keep in touch with the latest news of our favorite football team. This brings to mind the time that a person was rattling off the name of the players in the season lineup of the Green Bay Packers, but couldn’t name either his representative or senator after asking him if he could name either one – a testament that American citizens are shirking their responsibility.
We don’t need limited terms, we need to limit the terms of elected officials that don’t perform their job according to the Constitution and the People, the legal American citizens, and of this nation we call our own, and we need to be able to determine just what the job of a legislator entails, so if public schooling does not teach this, we must endeavor to teach ourselves. The first step would be to read and know what the Constitution represents and its meaning. Not some flexibility ideology that the political left uses when it comes, for example, the Second Amendment. Militia, meaning the citizen soldier, the Minutemen (and women) who are ready to stand and defend themselves, their homes, their family, and their neighbors against aggressions of any kind; and this is not possible if our firearms are taken away and/or restricted to the point we cannot defend ourselves if we so choose to use the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, of which if removed would make it easier to take away the other amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. Property rights has pretty much fallen by the way, either by the local busy bodies of the town council or the upholders of a Nanny State in Washington, DC.
We need real leadership, and we need it now. Unfortunately, the remaining candidates after the farce called primary election, has left us with candidates that are populists, and not truly what the grassroot American wants. Once again, after begging my fellow Americans to quit putting themselves in the situation of choosing the best of the worst – here we are again. We eliminated the worst of worst – Hillary Clinton (I think) and now we have two candidates with more in common than brainwashed Americans think.
Thank you, Chuck Norris for being one of the “founders” of the new revolution. Our numbers are growing. Political parties don’t matter – rule of law, Constitutional law and the People of our nation, any nation, that matters. Thank you, Chuck Norris, for being just a good American. John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda and Ronald Reagan would be proud.
