NO Standing Army, NO Taxes, NO Executive Branch Czars

Thomas Jefferson State of the Union Address (SOTU)

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “This is probably the most important part of Jefferson’s State of the Union.  What does that clause say?  I should throw that out there as a trivia question to see if anybody could get it.  I’ll read it to you again.”  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

[reading]

War, indeed, and untoward events, may change this prospect of things, and call for expenses which the imposts could not meet; but sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not, perhaps, happen but from the temptations offered by that treasure.

[end reading]

Mike:  This is probably the most important part of Jefferson’s State of the Union.  What does that clause say?  I should throw that out there as a trivia question to see if anybody could get it.  I’ll read it to you again.

[reading]

War, indeed, and untoward events, may change this prospect of things, and call for expenses which the imposts could not meet. But sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow-citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not perhaps happen, but from the temptations offered by that treasure.

[end reading]

[private FP-Monthly|FP-Yearly|FP-Yearly-WLK|FP-Yearly-So76]

Mike:  What does that say?  That says that wars can happen, yes, I understand that as president.  No, I don’t want to command a standing army and have them hanging around waiting for one to happen or conjuring up the conditions for one to happen because we collected the money and raised the army in the first place.  In other words, he’s reaffirming: We’re not going to have a standing army, guys.  Don’t try.  Don’t send it to me.  I’ll veto it.  Don’t try for the standing army.  It’s not going to happen.  We need to remain at peace and we don’t need to tax people so that we can fund and have a standing army.

By the bye, a question to all you decepticon frauds out there.  Does that make Jefferson a tree-hugging peacenik, liberal hippy?  We should denounce him for this, shouldn’t we?  He sounds an awful lot like one of those guys from the ‘60s, doesn’t he?  He sounds like one of those pacifists.  How could Jefferson commit these atrocities?  How could he be so callous?  I can hear some of you going, [mocking] “I’ll tell you what, buddy, how could he be so dumb?  E’erbody knows you gotta have a standing army or the Muslims will come and kill ya.”  Gee, we saw in the beginning of this State of the Union that we were fighting Muslims off the coast of Africa.  On the third page in, not too far in, we find the president saying: We have to do that but we don’t need a standing army.  We don’t need to tax people to raise an army to do it.

Wait a minute, he had to know that the Barbary Coast and those Barbary inhabitants that he mentioned, he had to know that they were Muslims.  By some of your own very loud and very angry insistences, we know that TJ had a Koran, so he knew what they were capable of.  Why didn’t he grab a bugle and bugle out some early form of Reveille — yes, I know Reveille wouldn’t be written until 1868 or so — and rally the Congress to the ramparts?  The Barbary Pirates are coming!  The Barbary pirates are coming!  The Muslims are coming to kill us all!  By the bye, there were as many if not more Barbary pirates and those in the impressment of the Pasha of Tripoli than there are ISIS today.  Food for thought, eh?  By the bye, I anxiously await all your replies on this.  I wish we could reanimate Mr. Jefferson and sit him in that chair right across from me so we could put him on trial for being a peacenik hippy loser.

[reading]

These views, however, of reducing our burdens, are formed on the expectation that a sensible and at the same time a salutary reduction may take place in our habitual expenditures. For this purpose, those of the civil Government, the Army, and Navy will need revisal. [Mike: In other words, they’ll need to be smaller.] When we consider that this Government is charged with the external and mutual relations only of these States; that the states themselves have principal care of our persons, our property, and our reputation, constituting the great field of human concerns, we may well doubt whether our organization is not too complicated, too expensive; whether offices and officers have not been multiplied unnecessarily and sometimes injuriously to the service they were meant to promote.

[end reading]

Mike:  I’m always blown away when I read this.  Just try and grasp this for a moment.  He is complaining about the size of the general leviathan at the time of 1801.  I’m here to tell you that the size of the government that he’s complaining about, you could take one naval base — how about one of the ones around Mordor?  Take the naval base in Philadelphia, for example.  That installation would be larger than all the installations that he is describing and is worrying and fretting so much about.  Here’s the question for all you “conservatives” out there.  Why is he so concerned with the size of the armed forces?  He keeps bringing it up, not me.  I’m just reading it.  Why is he so concerned about this?  Also, why is he concerned about the fact that if you have those armed forces at the ready, that you’re going to have to fund them, you’re going to have to pay for them?  Why is he concerned about this?  Why is this in the front of the State of the Union?  It’s not in the end; it’s at the front.  If we read on, we may learn.

Again, Thomas Jefferson, December 8, 1801, a real State of the Union.  And how about that statement that the states are charged with their own principal care?  He also said they are charged with their own defense.  Gee, how’s that possible?  [mocking] “Mitter Church, Mitter Church, maybe you were right when you said the militia clause in the Second Amendment is there to provide for the defense.”  Maybe.  No, I haven’t been right about anything.  Back to TJ:

[reading]

I will cause to be laid before you an essay toward a statement of those who, under public employment of various kinds, draw money from the Treasury or from our citizens. Time has not permitted a perfect enumeration, the ramifications of office being too multiplied and remote to be completely traced in a 1^st trial.

Among those who are dependent on Executive discretion I have begun the reduction of what was deemed unnecessary. The expenses of diplomatic agency have been considerably diminished. [Mike: In other words, he’s already fired people.] The inspectors of internal revenue who were found to obstruct the accountability of the institution have been discontinued. [Mike: In other words, they were fired.] Several agencies created by Executive authorities, on salaries fixed by that also, have been suppressed, [Mike: In other words, Adams created an agency or two. Jefferson said: Huh-uh, get that BS out of here. Go home. Go back to Massachusetts and be productive.] and should suggest the expediency of regulating that power by law, so as to subject its exercises to legislative inspection and sanction.

[end reading]

Mike:  I want you to understand what I just read to you.  “Several agencies created by Executive authorities…”  Let’s just pretend that he’s talking about czars or he’s talking about the EPA, etc., etc.  “…on salaries fixed by that also…”  What does that mean?  That means he, or President Adams before him, determined how much they would be paid.  “…have been suppressed.”  What does that mean?  Well, they’ve either been fired or they’ve been seriously curtailed.  He concludes, “…and should suggest the expediency of regulating that power by law, so as to subject its exercises to legislative inspection and sanction.”

[/private]

What does that mean, Mr. Church?  That means, translated from 1801 to 2014 — from 1801 literary brilliance into 2014 knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal, stultifiance, it means this.  The executive can’t create its own agencies.  The executive can’t issue certain orders.  And the executive can’t fund those activities.  No, President Obama can’t do it.  President Bush couldn’t do it.  Presidents Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, etc., etc. shouldn’t have been doing it.  In other words, he’s suggesting an amendment here.  They should have an amendment that spells out, that adds to the

Constitution a declaratory clause that what Obama and others have done, using their executive power, can’t be done.

[reading]

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Other reformations of the same kind will be pursued with that caution which is requisite in removing useless things, not to injure what is retained. But the great mass of public offices is established by law, and therefore by law alone can be abolished. Should the Legislature think it expedient to pass this roll in review and try all its parts by the test of public utility, they may be assured of every aid and light which Executive information can yield.

[end reading]

Mike:  In other words, if you guys want to start whacking agencies and whacking other people that I can’t, you go right ahead and I’ll be cheering you.  I’ll have the popcorn and the beer ready, boys.

End Mike Church Show Transcript