Corruption

Government control or involvement in trade has an unseemly past. Using war ships to escort merchant ships to protect them from pirates made sense, but extortion was made famous by colonial powers showing up with war ships and merchant ships to the shores of vulnerable natives. The natives saw the big guns and became very cooperative. Eventually, the colonial powers just took over these countries.

For a brief time in the 1950s and 1960s, US companies were highly ethical in their dealings with other countries. The refrained from bribery and extortion, but their overseas trading partners were not so squeaky clean. Their corrupt countries were run by bribery; you couldn’t do business without it. US companies resisted for a while, but eventually, they succumbed to giving these corrupt governments and trading partners the bribes they wanted. Going down that slippery slope got us to where we are now.

Bribery has been with us for a long time and is the gateway drug to Monopoly. We saw India crawl out of poverty by cutting the red-tape that corruption had created to prevent free enterprise from functioning.  In the US, the red-tape includes unnecessary regulations, bad trade agreements, unconstitutional federal departments, agencies and programs, subsidies and special tax breaks. We have become a government controlled oligarchy that strangles free enterprise, protected by the legal system and consumers and voters are the victims.

Corruption exists wherever government can seize property, issue outrageous fines and seize your children or your assets. Corruption exists when government can borrow and spend whatever it wants and print money when the taxpayers refuse to raise their taxes. Corruption exists when the federal government continues to keep and expand its unconstitutional activities and state governments pass laws enabling this treason. Corruption exists when judges refuse to accurately interpret the US Constitution. Corruption exists when the federal government abdicates its responsibilities or gives away our sovereignty to a foreign power. Corruption exists in the US because our government has ignored the limits imposed by the US Constitution’s enumerated powers and 10^th Amendment.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader