From: The Patriot Post
The Most Perilous National Security Crisis Since 1860
· Thursday, April 7, 2011
A Time to Choose: Prosperity or Poverty
“To preserve 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. … The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression.” –Thomas Jefferson
In the news this week, Barack Hussein Obama announced his 2012 re-election bid.
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The Treasury Department quietly mentioned that last month the government spent 8.2 times its net revenue.
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The Continuing Resolution authorizing additional borrowing for federal spending, a source of much political pretentiousness, expires on Friday. If there is no renewed CR, the result will be a partial government shutdown (read: “debt accumulation slowdown”), with dire consequences such as the suspension of IRS audits. Of course, the shutdown showdown is just the opening salvo in a war over how to fund the remaining five months of FY2011, which ends on 30 September, and, moreover, government budgets for 2012 and beyond.
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The price of oil, amid the Middle East meltdown precipitated by Obama’s leadership vacuum, is on the fast track back to its record high of $147/barrel. Indeed, it may be headed to more than $2-300/barrel if the Saudi government is the next to fall. Despite what the Obama administration would have us believe, oil is the lifeblood of the U.S. and world economy, and we have a critical national interest in sustaining that supply. However, because of Leftist energy policies, we do not have energy hedges including domestic oil and nuclear power alternatives.
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Consequently, gold bullion — the world’s primary barometer of concern about inflation, national debt, securities and real estate price declines, fiat currency failures, and warfare and social unrest — hit a nominal record high of $1,457 per troy ounce.
However, the most significant news this week, in light of the aforementioned reports, is the big Beltway budget brawl between those who are advocating the right path to economic prosperity and Liberty, and those who would stay the course toward economic catastrophe and tyranny.
The raucous political rhetoric over the federal budget sounds much like the perennial hyperbole between Right and Left over the constitutional authority of the central government and its spending priorities. However, the outcome of the current debate is much more than a budget agreement for next year and the next decade: It will determine whether our nation will avert systemic economic collapse or collide with it head-on, plunging us into the most significant National Security Crisis since 1860, and condemning our posterity to the inevitable institution of socialism and the abject tyranny that accompanies it.
If a majority of our countrymen are not able to distinguish between the veracity of this grave assertion and political playbook hyperbole, the consequences for the next generation of Americans will be grim as the light of Liberty fades.
The danger of public debt was of great concern to our nation’s Founders.
As George Washington wrote, “No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable.” James Madison declared, “Having never been a proselyte to the doctrine, that public debts are public benefits … I consider them, on the contrary, as evils which ought to be removed as fast as honor and justice will permit.” Thomas Jefferson warned, “To preserve 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. … The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression.”
Regrettably, few today attach much reverence to the words of such men. Fewer still — especially those who lived through the last Great Depression — remain among us to attest in first person to its tragic consequences for our nation, for its people, and for our legacy of Liberty.
To paraphrase philosopher George Santayana, “Ignorance of historical tragedy begets its replication.”
Make no mistake: We are at a tipping point.