Category Archives: BIg Government

Bill Lockwood: Deep State Government—A Life of Its Own 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Anyone who has witnessed either a community or a church tearing apart because of rumors, gossip, innuendo’s and idle talk can testify to the fact these types of troubles sometimes take on a life of their own. The general feeling is that, at some point, as situations become more aggravated, one cannot stop it. Whatever may be the initial cause and regardless of how that problem may have become settled by the initial participants, the issues continue to live. This is simply human nature.

It is for this reason that Jesus commanded, “Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are with him in the way; lest haply the adversary delivers you to the judge, the judge delivers you to the officer, and you are cast into prison” (Matt. 5:25). Simply put, if possible, do not allow differences to grow.

The principle is the same with the nature of government, since government is only comprised of fallible humans. The very reason our Founders insisted upon a small government is not only because all of human history demonstrates suffering of individuals at the hands of their own political leaders, but that governing systems that become too large with power gravitating to a central office are unable to be effectively controlled by individuals—in spite of the fact that it is to be “of, by, and for the people.” It is individual freedom that they were after.

Thomas Jefferson bluntly observed that he wanted government simple. “I am for government rigorously frugal and simple.” As far back as 1824, he criticized the size of our government. “I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” This was not merely personal preference. It was wisdom speaking.

Carelessly casting aside the warnings of the Founders, Americans have allowed all power to coalesce to Washington, D.C. The impediments placed in the Constitution by the Founders to forestall the growth of power are antiquated relics of dusty history. And the sociology of the situation is such that this gigantic leviathan that we have suffered to rule now takes on a life of its own. Some call it The Deep State. Others, The Establishment. Still others referred to it as The Shadow Government.

Whatever label we might put upon it, there is clearly a legion of government bureaucrats deeply buried within the halls of government. These bureaucrats are totalitarian in nature, communist in orientation, and pound out numberless rules, regulations, decrees to control the lives of once-free Americans. It is a fantasy that our elected leaders are in control.

Consider the presidency of Donald Trump and only one small sampling of the Deep State at work.

Rudy Giuliani

We now learn that the Justice Department, and specifically its investigative arm, the FBI, while Trump was the chief executive officer of the United States, illegally surveilled Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani during his conversations with Trump on iCloud. This occurred during the manufactured “Russiagate” scandal—pressed by Democrats and the MSM.

Not only was the entire “Russiagate” a red herring, born and bred within the inner recesses of our own government, but the Justice Department itself acted in Mao-like fashion against its own sitting president. Here is the totalitarian “permanent state” or cabal working to destroy Trump from within.

Siding with the rogue FBI is the MSM—The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC News—who have now been forced to retract incorrect stories about Rudy Guiliani. They all falsely reported that he had been briefed about the “Russian intelligence influence operation” that had supposedly targeted him. Never mind the clear evidence that was on the table involving the entire Biden syndicate in laundering money from foreign nations. Go punish Guiliani and Trump.

Now more. Within the last two weeks federal investigators carried out a search warrant at the home and office of Guiliani because of his alleged ties to Ukraine — all based upon incorrect information (see Epoch Times, 5-2-21).

Alan Dershowitz, a constitutional lawyer, openly stated that the FBI’s raid on Guiliani’s apartment violated the Constitution. “This was just a misuse of the search and seizure power. Initially, it was turned down; now it was approved, both by a judge and by the attorney general of the United States, so it wasn’t lawless action, but I believe that they acted inconsistently with both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and that there should be remedies of it.”

Kash Patel

Kash Patel, the lawyer from Queens, New York, who served in senior posts during Trump’s Administration, including senior advisor to the Director of National Intelligence, is also facing a “Justice Department investigation.” Patel had assisted Rep. David Nunes’s investigation of crimes and abuses committed during the FBI’s operation targeting the Trump campaign. He had helped uncover the Democratic-led hoax called “Russiagate.” This is too much for the Democratic-controlled government. Patel is facing payback–an “official” Justice Department investigation.

Apparently, Donald Trump was president “on paper only.” Americans have lost control of their government. The Swamp has always ruled, and now with the Biden Administration they are ensuring no one like Trump will ever take office again. Government “of, by, and for the people” has indeed “perished from the earth” – at least for now.

Bill Lockwood: It is the Mammoth-Sized Government Which Destroys Lives 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Whatever one may think about the United States’ Government leaders’ involvement in bringing about the 1930’s Depression, the crisis was certainly used by the Democratic left to usher us into an unconstitutional era of Big Government intrusion. And it is this mammoth-sized government which, in the name of assisting the poor, crushes the lives and liberties of citizens.

Amity Shlaes, in her new masterful recounting of Lyndon Johnson’s socialistic Great Society programs, provides ample proof that big government erodes freedom. Her book, Great Society: A New History, documents how the do-gooders of yesteryear in reality “shackled millions of families in permanent government dependence.”

Setting the American people on the course of entitlement dependency – which is dependency upon government confiscated taxpayer money– Lyndon Johnson practically “precluded” a return to constitutionalism. One particular episode perfectly illustrates the destructive force of bureaucracy. It is the formation of the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its implementation of “urban renewal.”

Destroying Families

As with its precursor, the Federal Housing Administration, HUD began using public monies to bribe the local communities to establish local housing authorities as receptacles to receive and dispense funds. As with all funds funneled through the federal government, these federal monies now controlled the projects themselves. One can see even today that every element of social and private life is controlled by Uncle Sam.

Illustrative of this is the fact that when massive housing structures such as Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis were built, only “welfare families were entitled to the lowest rents.” But to receive welfare in Missouri a family could have only one parent—normally, the mother. The government itself thus incentivized single-parent families. Where there were two-parent families, a mom and dad, many of these families actually “lost a father” in order to move into Pruitt-Igoe.

“’The stipulation was that my father could not be with us,’ recalled a former tenant, Jacquelyn Williams. ‘They would put us into the housing projects only if he left the state.’” The social workers even policed apartments at night, checking to see if father had secretly returned, grounds for eviction. Williams remembered this all her life. “We’re giving you money, so we have the right to make stipulations as to how you use it.”

Confiscating Private Property—Evicting Citizens

Next, “the only way to make grand-scale building possible [for public housing] was for the authorities to condemn and claim large swaths of private land.” For this they used the old doctrine of “eminent domain.” “Under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, this was the taking of private property for ‘public use.’” This was specifically constructed by the Founders for military and other public purposes.

But Johnson “began to bulldoze whole sections of cities, and then hand the land with its rubble to private developers. In Detroit, the violence to old neighborhoods was especially great.”

Black Detroit in the 1940’s and 1950’s lived packed in areas known as Paradise Valley and Black Bottom. The main retail thoroughfare, Hastings Street, was legendary, known the nation over because it was frequented by the singers and agents who later gave the country Motown music. Stores, churches, and homes stood tightly together, sometimes tightly enough to be called ‘slums,’ but often containing a vibrant life, much loved by the inhabitants.

However, liberty is lost in Big Government schemes, and regardless of what was and was not loved by the people who actually lived there, in “the eyes of the government, Black Bottom looked like blight. To the eyes of the auto unions and the Big Three automakers, pedestrian zones were a threat: highways that replaced sidewalks represented not only modernity but job security and high company share prices.”

The bulldozers leveled it all. Room was made for “public housing towers, for [Walter] Reuther’s Lafayette Park and for freeways. “Families had been herded into tall, anonymous apartment buildings, or had simply disappeared.” Hundreds of thousands of Americans, many poor or black, were evicted in this way.

Such grandiose government on the scale of Lenin was taken to court by home and business owners who resented the confiscation of their properties. As a matter of fact, both sides appealed to the Supreme Court. The homeowners and the government. In its decision, Berman v. Parker, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas “stretched the old concept of eminent domain like a rubber band.” His words are remarkable for the disdain of individual rights and the Constitution.

“’Public welfare,’ Douglas wrote, equating ‘public welfare’ with public use, should be ‘broad and inclusive.’ Authorized agencies could make their decisions about what to take freely.”

“’It is not for us to reappraise them,’ Douglas said. Douglas concluded by handing over his rubber band to government authorities. ‘If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the nations’ capital shall be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.’”

Shlaes points out that more than 600,000 Americans were displaced by this totalitarian process.

Predictably, Johnson’s socialistic utopia of urban renewal failed. The vacancy rate of Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis was at 23.9 percent and 29.3 percent, much higher than in the free market. Poor maintenance meant that elevators jammed, windows were regularly broken by wild youngsters, gangs of thugs lurked in the halls, and the entire community surrounding it became a sorry joke. Even the architect hired by Johnson, Minoru Yamasaki apologized publicly for Pruitt-Igoe.

In the end one cannot but draw the conclusion that it is the government itself which destroys lives. Pruitt-Igoe a perfect illustration.