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DAVID CROCKET TO BONO: "IT'S NOT YOURS TO GIVE"

By Mary Starrett
August 12, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

The Republican National Committee has signed on to endorse a proposal by Irish rocker Bono to commit American taxpayers to spending $30 million to �eliminate global poverty.�

As if any amount of tax payer funds would actually accomplish that goal. What usually happens is the money extracted from us to fund these wealth transfers first fills the pockets of foreign fat cat dictators while barely a trickle ends up lining empty food bowls.

History has shown us socialism does not work. Countries laboring under the delusion that Utopia can be achieved by making sure all have �what they need� necessitates that relatively few must labor to provide for all. Bono�s ill-advised scheme is socialism. The Republican Party has agreed to consign Americans to the same fate as other socialist countries with its recent endorsement of Bono�s global goody bag.

Bono, the mouthpiece for environmentalism, global wealth transfer and socialist policy in general owns several opulent mansions throughout the world and travels by jet. The four engine behemoth he flies (while admonishing you to drive a hybrid) gets about 3 miles per gallon. (So much for the imperiled ozone, the Kyoto treaty and greenhouse gasses.)

What we now see is the GOP unabashedly aligning itself with a man who travels the world advocating taxpayers (especially the porcine capitalists in America) fund every bloated ostensibly humanitarian project the UN can cook up. Ironically, Bono has moved his lucrative music enterprise out of his native Ireland and to the Netherlands to offset a huge tax bill with nary a wimper about this Bono factoid in our liberal press.

With planes, mansions, off shore tax shelters and a world-wide bully pulpit to tell Americans how they should fund millions for tin pot dictators in far flung lands- Bono�s got it all figured out about how much and to whom you must give to charity.

And the Republicans have signed you up for this lunacy. The Republicans- the party of limited government whose control of the White House and/or both houses of Congress for a quarter century has resulted in quadrupled federal spending.

Would that time travel were possible; I�d introduce Davy Crockett to this bonehead Bono. Davy Crockett was a U.S. Congressman from Tennessee- not just some coon-skin capped fictional character. Based on the following story I suspect the fabled frontiersman Davy Crockett would have a few well-chosen- albeit sharp- words for Mr. Bono.

In the early 1800's Congress was considering a bill to give tax dollars to the widow of a well-loved military officer. Davy Crockett rose to address Congress after many speeches advocating the allocation. He said: �Mr. Speaker�. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity, but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money. We have no�. authority to appropriate it as a charity. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.�

There was silence on the floor of the House as Crockett took his seat. When the bill was put to a vote, instead of passing unanimously as had been expected, it received only a few votes. The next day a friend asked Crockett why he spoken against a bill for such a worthy cause. In reply, Crockett related the following story: Just a few years before, he had voted to spend $20,000.00 of public money to help the victims of a fire in Georgetown. When the legislative session was over, Crockett made a trip back home to campaign for his re-election. He encountered one of his constituents. The man told Crockett, �I voted for you the last time. I shall not vote for you again.� Crockett, feeling he had served his constituents well, was stunned. He inquired as to what he had done wrong. The man replied, �You gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it.

The Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions.... Last winter you voted for bill to appropriate $20,000.00 to some who suffered because of a fire. Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away public money in charity? No Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. Everything beyond this is� a violation of the Constitution. You have violated the Constitution in what I consider to be a vital point When Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the People.�

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Time travel not-withstanding Congressman Davy Crockett�s words hold as true today whether we�re talking to Bono, the RNC, the Democrats or well-meaning Americans. When taxed to fund charity we should respond:

�It�s not yours to give.�

For a downloadable copy of the Davy Crockett "Not Yours To Give" story click here.

� 2007 Mary Starrett - All Rights Reserved