tr.v. dis•il•lu•sioned, dis•il•lu•sion•ing, dis•il•lu•sions
to free or deprive of illusion.
freeing from false belief or illusions

I guess at some point I will find myself in a place of thankfulness for this state of disillusionment. As I devour documents and historical presentations what is coming into focus more than anything else is my conclusion that nobody's hands are clean.

And right now I am angry.

Is there not one to be found in our history of integrity, of proven incorruptibility?! Man's human condition will always contain a mix of good and evil. To read the struggle of our Framers, the Federalists & the Anti-Federalists, from Hamilton and the tariffs he supported, to Lincoln and his power grab in the ratification of the 14th Amendment. We only have a Bill of Rights because of the Anti-Federalists refusal to ratify the Constitution without it. Yet this group is associated with the Southern Confederacy and with slavery. We must try not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

What I find confounding right now, which I am certain to find other instances that confound me, is this: the Federalists as a political party dissolved. The Anti-Federalists divided into the Whigs and the Republicans. The Whigs died also. The Republican Party became the Democratic Republicans which evolved into the Democratic Party. The heritage of the Democratic Party are Anti-Federalists such as Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry! Hamilton’s federalists thought the interpretation of the Constitution should be loose and Jefferson’s democratic-republicans strict. This is confounding! This is confusing.

During the 1900's the Democrats became huge proponents of loose interpretation, supported new programs that gave more and more power to the central government. Republicans became proponents of strict interpretations. Yet have also become complicit in allowing the expansion of government with more laws and agency creations and expansive intrusions into the private life of the citizens and the sovereignty of the States. Under Roosevelt, a Democrat, came The New Deal Programs; emergency relief programs, work relief programs, agricultural programs, and industrial reform (the National Recovery Administration, NRA), and the end of the gold standard, labor union support, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief program, the Social Security Act, and programs to aid farmers, including tenant farmers and migrant workers AND The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 which set maximum hours and minimum wages. Most of the relief programs were shut down during World War II by the Conservative Coalition, a group of opponents in congress. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the Social Security System, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Fannie Mae are still intact. The Social Security Act, became the Social Security Administration under Truman, a Democrat, who also was a proponent of National Health Insurance. Truman though, appointed 4 conservative judges. Eisenhower, a Republican, kept all the New Deal Programs that remained and enlarged the Social Security program. He put all these into a new cabinet level agency called The Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Kennedy established the Peace Corps and was a huge proponent of expanded foreign policy, to come to the aid and defense of anyone whose liberty is threatened. Definitely not the line of present day Democrats. Lyndon B Johnson, a Democrat, created the "Great Society" legislation that included civil rights laws, Medicare, Medicaid , aid to education with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the Higher Education Act, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the "War on Poverty" (the Economic Opportunity Act) which produced the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), Job Corps (1964) and Head Start (1965). (As a side note here: Johnson continued the wiretapping of Martin Luther King, Jr. that had been previously authorized by the Kennedy administration under Attorney General Robert Kennedy. President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been used by the Democrats as icons. How many know of Kennedy’s wire tapping and Johnson’s view of King as a “hypocritical preacher.”) Nixon, a Republican signed the Economic Stabilization Act, and while he opposed permanent price and wage controls Nixon imposed the controls on a temporary basis, for 90 days. He also created Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Nixon also was a proponent of universal minimum income and universal health care. He was a Republican. And though not a program, to his credit, I must mention Nixon’s deep passion to eradicate racial segregation. He felt that racism was the greatest moral failure of the United States. All racism. The Equal Rights Amendment was immediately signed by Nixon only to fail in the States. Under Ford, a Republican, came the Federal Aid Highway Act. The Department of Energy, the Department of Education and the National Energy Program and a myriad of other programs within programs were enacted during President Carter’s reign, also a Democrat. I have not found any new programs created during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, yet. I found only an expanded Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).

There is so much I just have to stop now. I have not even touched the 1st Amendment and 2nd Amendment violations or the abuse of the Commerce Clause, which is huge and will be left for another rant. I didn’t go on into 1989 till present; Bush Senior, Clinton or Bush Jr. Or Obama's new abominations. And I didn’t go back further than 1933 into Hoover, Coolidge, Harding and earlier.

The complicity of our lawmakers in the complicating of the government and the law is undeniable. In the 20^th century, the mass majority of programs and agencies were created under Democrat Presidents. However, the Republican Presidents either enlarged them, added to them or allowed laws to be passed to expand them. Ask why the law makers, our representatives, make it so complicated to understand what they are doing? The complicity of the citizens who blindly accept and those that, accept who see, is undeniable. We have allowed ourselves to be governed by an over reaching, over bearing, monster of a government that continues to grow, continues to restrict and continues to invade, to trespass upon the governed. This is alarming. This is disturbing. This is a horrid legacy to leave OUR posterity. I implore you to get involved. My local Republican friends see this. And a number of my Democrat friends as well. More of us are taking action to become a barrier to the encroachment of the FED.  If taking action right now just means going to a meeting, writing a letter, making a phone call. Do it.

The power hungry politician will never go away. It is up to the citizens to prevent the wolves from eating the sheep. And the only way to prevent getting eaten is to stop being sheep.