Andrew Horning for U.S. Senate

Campaign - Media

Issues - Policy

Written by Andy Thursday, December 01, 2011 08:34 pm

That’s the question I hear the most: “What are you going to do for me?”  But let me ask you; what have politicians done for you so far?

In his 1961 inaugural address, JFK ordered an about-face from the New Deal when he said, “…ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.”  He then pushed for the biggest tax cut in history.  The great orator, abolitionist, statesman and former slave Frederick Douglass said, “Do nothing with us, or by us, as a particular class.  We now simply ask to be allowed to do for ourselves.”  Our “Founding Fathers” created a nation that had the simplest, thriftiest, most minimal government on earth, and this nation flourished like no other in history.  Why did people ask less and get more back then?  Why are we failing now?  It’s simple.  The people who win power with promises are not the ones who help you every day.

Politicians don’t make the discoveries that make our lives safer, longer, and more comfortable.  Free-market, free-thinking artisans, inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs do that.  Government doesn’t build cars, nice houses and stylish shoes.  It doesn’t make espresso, or bicycle helmets, or leather sofas, or medicines.  It doesn’t make jumbo jets, computers or portable DVD players.  Private businesses are launching spacecraft and building global telecom systems.  Doctors can, without political intervention, open up a failing human body, replace the heart, and allow a life to go on.

Yet we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that without government, there’d be no roads.  Some of us think that without government subsidies, there’d be no football, no art, no charity, no business.  While we don’t utter it anymore, there is a name for this thinking.  We used to call it socialism, and Americans used to fight it.  Now we whimper and beg for it; and we’re getting it good and hard. 

So, you want to know what I’ll do for you?

Perhaps you call it “Spring Cleaning” when you look around, get disgusted with what you see, and purge your environment of anything that doesn’t suit you.  It’s called good business when companies consolidate, drop ancillary operations and focus on core business.  Whatever you call it, I will apply this wisdom to government again.  It’s worked every time we’ve tried it, and it works to the benefit of all.  That sounds like a fair deal to me. 

Issues - Law

Written by Andy Friday, April 06, 2012 08:53 pm

The Declaration of Independence boils down to something very simple, and very different from what most people think. The very first-listed complaint against the king was that “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”

The revolutionaries were asking for Rule of Law. Our nation’s founders wanted law as due all English citizens; not crony lawlessness and authoritarian whim imposed upon them from afar.

That’s what I want. That may be what you want, too – laws that mean what they say, and apply to everyone equally. To summarize what I’m all about:

1. Rules that are few enough that everyone can know all the laws they’re to obey.

2. Rules that are simple enough that everyone can understand the rules they're to obey ...without a lawyer or decoder ring.

3. Rules that are important enough, that every single one of them is to be obeyed equally all the time. No exceptions, provisos, caveats or cheating. No special classes, no time outs.

Right now, we have no laws. We have lots of words, of course. But we have no laws.

Even our simplest “laws,” (they’re not legitimate laws if they’re not constitutionally authorized) like speed limits, are selectively enforced, unequally applied, and more often than not, lack any constitutional authority whatsoever.

We have more “laws” than anyone could ever know; many are more complex than anyone can understand; and they are written full of holes, exceptions, special classes and favored cronies.

What’s worse is that, in unabashed defiance of the constitution’s clear delineation-separation of powers, and obvious prohibition against it, our lawmakers only start a process of legalistic effluvium, while actual societal effect is executed, and in fact made “law,” only by courts, bureaucracies (who typically acquire legislative, executive and judicial power unto themselves) and the occasional “Executive Order.” Since all law is thus ad hoc whimsy spread across the whole of our political machinery, our courts have become arms races where the best-funded side gets the best lawyer/mercenary, and gets the most favorable outcome.

This is all illegal, unjust, doesn’t work, and can’t last.

So I propose we do our written constitutions, state and federal, as written. Whatever isn't clear will be clarified, whatever we need to change will be changed...but we must do the written law as written.

You got a better idea?

Issues - Peace

Written by Andy Friday, April 06, 2012 08:56 pm

This is a difficult topic if for no other reason than because nobody wants to sacrifice for nothing; and almost everyone at least knows somebody, or loves somebody, who has sacrificed much to this nation’s insatiable lust for armed global control.

It is sad to me, but parents who’ve lost a child to one of our wars often want vengeance more than an end to our endless overseas military operations. I suppose once you've lost a child, you don't think much about sacrificing somebody else's child to avenge your loss.

But I’ll just state plainly that if you’re one of those who think we need to keep looking for foes in the international shrubbery, that we need to persist in our game of “whack a mole” and “nation building,” then don’t vote for me!

I am disgusted and grieved by our fear-aggression-syndrome posture over the past century-plus, and will do whatever I can to stop it.

To me, the cornerstone and hallmark of a working civil society is peace.

And I must say something that will be very unpopular to some (who’d not likely vote for me anyway):

I do not “thank a soldier” for my freedoms.

Our freedoms were won by citizen soldiers fighting the professional standing armies of that age’s global superpower.

Think about it. Who ever takes away liberty but the professional armed forces/police of the political elites?

Let us stop fooling ourselves about the nature of armed forces. They do what they’re told to do. We’ve been very lucky, so far, that they’ve not been told to do what is historically typical, and seen around the world still today.

Issues - Liberty

Written by Andy Friday, April 06, 2012 08:57 pm

Sigh… I don’t know what’s gotten into our collective heads to make us think we’ve had too much freedom – such that we had to give it all away for fear-stricken fascination with false security by unregulated politics. We have, in my opinion, chosen a childish, shortsighted, fear-mongering and hateful way to live. I wish we’d collectively wake up and choose to live as adults; with the civil liberties properly accorded to people who can be trusted to behave themselves to at least some degree.

Yes, this is a matter of trust. Who do you trust? Do you really trust your neighbors less than the historically dangerous, power-mad class of people we call “politicians?” If you can trust your neighbors enough to trust that we can dedicate our local policing to catching the few bad ones among us, then we can throw off entire agencies and political powers dedicated to watching, corralling and restricting …you.

Of course, this can’t be the Land of The Free if we’re not also the Home of The Brave. It takes a leap of bravery to go from where we are now to a nation that stands down its professional military presence all over the world and learns to defend itself from each home outward.

But don’t fool yourself anymore. You’re not as secure as you would be if you were the American our founders thought you’d be.

It’s only the self-disciplined, civil, honest and, (at least a little brave) adult that can be free.

Are you ready to be free?

That’s not my call. I do hope, however.

Issues - Security

Written by Andy Friday, April 06, 2012 08:57 pm

Mostly as in my post 'Liberty'. Only the Land of the Brave can be self-protective and secure to any degree. The Land of the Free would set an example others would want to emulate, not destroy. Putting faith in history's greatest threat (our own politicians) is not a good idea, as dictators from Caligula and Vlad the Impaler, to Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot... have proven. The list is long and ancient. As exceptions are so rare as to be considered anomalous, the history is proof.

What we gave away was the best means of peace and security ever...as well as the best path to prosperity and liberty.