Betty Freauf -- Attention Socialists

ATTENTION SOCIALISTS � NOT YOURS TO GIVE

By Betty Freauf

January 26, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

I occasionally glance at Annie�s Mailbox (formerly Ann Lander�s column) and recently a licensed Social Worker and Professor of Social Work at Hawaii Pacific University answered an earlier dilemma entitled �Crazy Not Stupid� who thought she was too mentally unstable to hold a job. The always well-intentioned social worker indicated that mental illness could be grounds for disability under Social Security. Although she said it isn�t easy to qualify but if this woman believes she is too ill to work and her therapist agrees, she should contact the Social Security Administration about applying for benefits.

Build the trough and they will come. Even some churches are looking to government for their �faith-based� initiatives.

I can imagine that readers also know of someone who is collecting Social Security benefits for questionable �illnesses.� The list would be long, including wives who have never worked outside the home and children who have lost a parent and can receive benefits until they reach the age of 18 -- it used to be 21. When we first married, my husband not only took out life insurance but he took out a disability insurance plan to help cover his wife and children. About four years ago, a widow told me she had four minor children when her husband died and she was collecting $900 a month for each of them from Social Security. Obviously, her husband made good money and the children received equal monthly amounts. Perhaps it is gauged on how much he would have received in benefits when he retired had he lived. It was not the government�s responsibility to look out for us in our old age but we�ve got it. We�re stuck with it and many elderly rely on it; however, Social Security was never intended to give benefits to anyone except the elderly and it wasn�t meant to be robbed, leaving worthless I.O.U.s -- and we wonder why it is bankrupt?

An earlier article from the end of December told about 76 year-old Audrey Davison from Greenburgh, New York with $620 in Social Security benefits. She suffers from arthritis and sciatica. She needs a walker to get around on her bad days. She has already taken out a reverse mortgage to pay her bills, which include about $12,000 per year in property taxes � perhaps $2,000 to the town. Of course, my questions are: �Does she have children?� �Is she too proud to ask them for help?� �Can she move in with them?� Because it has worked in other states, her town wants to pay her $7 per hour to help work off her property tax debt. The work done by other seniors includes landscaping, gathering climate data, clipping newspapers (right down my alley) and staffing the courthouse information booth. This should raise eyebrows. One younger person claims to have a mental health disability and may be eligible for benefits and this old lady is told she can work. Go figure.

I have this wonderful little gem in my files about the tale of Davy Crockett in which the old Tennessee bear hunter met up with the Constitution of the United States. In the House of Representatives one day, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. When Crockett arose, everybody expected that he was going to make one of his characteristic speeches in support of the bill but, instead, he spoke with great respect about the deceased and how he had sympathy for the sufferings of the living but he said that Congress had no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity and that Congress, as individuals, should take up an offering for the widow instead and although he said he was the poorest man on the House floor, he offered to give one week�s pay to the widow if every member of Congress would do the same. He explained this would amount to more than the bill had requested. He explained to his sympathetic colleagues had the government made some previous contract with the deceased, then they�d be obligated to pay but he said he had not heard that the government was in arrears to him. The bill died.

One perplexed colleague later visited with Crockett and asked him why he spoke out against the bill. He told his friend that earlier in his Congressional career, there had been a large fire in Georgetown that he had witnessed. Many houses were burned and many families made homeless. The weather was very cold and when he saw so many women and children suffering, he felt that something ought to be done for them. He said the next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. They put aside all business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done� There were a few of the members who did not think Congress had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill. Many of us wanted our names to appear in favor of what we considered a praiseworthy measure.

Then he said, �The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district� I thought it best to let the boys know that I had not forgotten them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them�

�I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow when I said to him: �Don�t be in such a hurry, my friend; I want to have a little talk with you and get better acquainted.� He replied: 'I am very busy and have but little time to talk but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say.��

The old backwoods farmer may not have spoken eloquently but he could read the papers and he knew his visitor was Colonel Crockett. He told Davy he�d voted for him before but never again. �This was a sockdolager�I begged him to tell me what was the matter.�

��Well, Colonel, it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter, which shows that either you have not (the) capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honest and firmness to be guided by it. In either case, you are not the man to represent me� the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.�� [Read]

Davy tried to convince the old farmer it was the right thing to do to relieve suffering particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury and if he�d been there, he would have done the same thing. The old farmer disagreed. ��It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle� The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff (no IRS back then), which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means�So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he�.You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other��

While this little booklet goes into much more greater detail, I think readers who are not familiar with the Constitution get the picture! All bills must originate in the House of Representatives and if our Congressmen were honest people, all these entitlement bills introduced in their chamber would not have seen the light of day and America would not be on the verge of bankruptcy today. As I draft this article, Wall Street is biting the dust and a meltdown worldwide seems on the horizon. Our corrupt misleaders will put on a few bandages and prop the market up a bit, but when the dust settles we are going to be in the same trouble as before -- reminiscent and perhaps worse than the 1929 crash! Today�s materialistic, have-it-all-now generation is not prepared for such a collapse. We only have ourselves to blame for not checking on their voting records as the old Tennessee farmer did and holding them accountable. We need to practice slowly the old LIFO method (Last In-First Out) in order to save this nation and Ron Paul would be the president to do it.

And for a humorous ending, let me reprint what came to me in an e-mail awhile back. While it slams the Democrats, there really is no basic political difference between the two parties. Both parties are responsible for our current dilemma and people are beginning to wake up and smell the coffee:

One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he asked about his bill and the barber replied, �I cannot accept money from you. I�m doing community service this week.� The florist was pleased and left the shop. The next morning when the barber went to open his shop, there was a thank you card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door. Later, a cop came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill, the barber again repeated what he'd said to the florist. The next morning when the barber went to open up there was a thank you card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Later, a Republican came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill, the barber repeated to him what he'd said to the florist and the cop. The next morning when the barber went to open, there was a thank you card and a dozen different books, such as �How to Improve Your Business� and �Becoming More Successful.�

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Then a Democrat came in for a haircut and when he went to pay his bill, the barber repeated to him what he'd told the florist, the cop and the Republican. The Democrat was very happy and left the shop. The next morning when the barber went to open up, there were a dozen Democrats lined up waiting for a free haircut.

And that my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the Left and Right.

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Betty is a former Oregon Republican party activist having served as state party secretary, county chairman, 5th congressional vice chairman and then elected chairman, and a precinct worker for many years but Betty gave up on the two-party system in 2004 and joined the Constitutional Party.

Betty is a researcher specializing in education, a freelance journalist and a regular contributor to www.NewsWithViews.com

E-Mail: bettyboot@wvi.com

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...if our Congressmen were honest people, all these entitlement bills introduced in their chamber would not have seen the light of day and America would not be on the verge of bankruptcy today.