A general election will take place in less than two weeks. The ballot in Texas will include eleven proposals for amending the state’s constitution. For those of you who live in Texas, you should already know that the Constitution of the State of Texas is highly detailed and sets forth not only how the state’s government is to be constituted but how it is to operate as well. That includes telling the legislature what it can and cannot do. Because the founding document is highly detailed, in many cases before the legislature can change the statutes, the constitution must first be amended by the people. That is what is going to happen in a few days.

The following is what my research shows:

Proposition 2, 3 & 5 are all really part of the same issue. For some reason, simplicity or law they have been separated. First of all Texans have always been taxed in Texas on property both real and personal. Real property is land and anything permanently attached to the land. Everything else is personal property. It makes no difference whether it used for earning income, it is all personal property, either private or business. Generally speaking property is always taxed on an ad valorem basis. Ad valorem is a Latin term meaning "at the value of."

Even though it is now just a little house, it can be said that the land would be worth so much more if the house were torn down and parking garage built there. In other words making the taxable value of the land much higher based on a better use of the land. The owner of the house might be required to pay a much higher tax on his property even though was still being used only as a residence.

The first part of the amendment, Proposition 2, addresses that problem by limiting the state to allowing nothing more than the residential value of the land on which your house sits regardless of the highest or best use to which it could be put. The owner must live in the house and it must be a Texas Homestead to get the protection but right now, you don't even have that. So vote on Preposition 2 accordingly.

Currently, the methods used in establishing the ad valorem value of property are set by the local taxing authority. As a result there are many different methods followed. Those differences often produce vast differences in the amount of tax collected.

The second part, or Proposition 3, attempts to take care of the problem of varying methodologies by standardizing the method for all taxing entities. It will provide for the administration and enforcement of uniform standards so that all taxing authorities are on the same page in how they determine the value of your property and therefore how much tax you will owe.

Presently if property you own is in two or more taxing districts, such as mine, you can have three or more taxing authorities evaluating your property, determining the tax rate and collecting taxes from you. It is very confusing. In my case I am in a county which taxes me. I live in a municipal utility district which taxes me. I live in a hospital district which taxes me and two school districts which tax my property. All of them tax at different rates. They each set values on my property following different methods and reaching far different results and each has its own equalization board. It can be a nightmare.

Proposition 3 will, if passed, authorize the legislature to allow a single board of equalization for two or more adjoining appraisal entities that elect to provide for consolidated equalization. That would be something you could control through your voting rights in the taxing entity.

So, most of what has been written about those three propositions has either been mis-leading or outright false. The faulty interpretation lies, I think, in the lack of knowledge as to how the Texas Constitution works and what it says. I would not recommend voting against any of these three propositions. In fact I intend to vote for them in the interest of protecting my own property.

It appears that you are not going to give up until you lose the entire show. Your staunch position of wanting to negotiate with the Democrats and the liberals of your own party gives away the weakness of that position and its hopelessness.

Some say, "Health care reform continues to dominate the agenda in Washington – and rightly so. We need a comprehensive approach to ensure Texans and all Americans have access to affordable care. This is one of the most important changes we can make to improve quality of life and it requires a thoughtful, deliberative debate and bi-partisan solutions."

Why does health care require debate and bi-partisan solutions? Why can you not see that it is government interference in health care that is the problem?

Had the government refrained from interfering in the automobile manufacturing business General Motors would not be a government owned company today. If both Bush and Obama has tended to the rightful business of the presidency Chrysler would probably still be an American company today. If Congress had kept out of the corporate welfare business and the political election pay back business the United States would not be facing the most horrendous deficit of its history.

And yet you continue. The House of Representatives recently passed the so-called Cap & Trade legislation which is nothing but an enormous tax on the American people, one which will ultimately destroy our economy thereby delivering it up to the whims of Barack Obama and the Social/Democrat party.

Now you want to mess around with health care. You want to try your untrained hand at delivering health care services. Why? You don’t know what you’re doing. Stop it. Get the House of Representatives back to doing what it should be doing and get it out of the business of medicine before it is too late for all of us.

"Absolutely essential? Just as it was absolutely essential that the so-called stimulus bill be passed without reading it? Without knowing where the money was going? Or how much would be spent? And when?

And what exactly do you think appropriate and properly designed means? Members of Congress, most of whom have never run a business of any kind and most of whom have no medical training or experience whatsoever are going to design a health care delivery service?

Stop this insane tinkering with our health. Stop this idiotic tampering with our republic. Stop second guessing us. Stop pandering to the liberal interests of both political parties.

STOP NEGOTIATING! YOU ARE ABOUT TO GIVE AWAY THE STORE!

Use your best efforts at thwarting the Democrats, not aiding and abetting them. Use your influence to change their vote instead of seeking out how to best allow them to change yours. America does not need its medical services industry changed. It is the finest health care delivery service in the world. The best that has ever existed. And if Congress will leave it alone, it can only get better.

There are matters which should be given the attention of legislators the country over, including you. But so far, you haven’t even looked at them. So far you have only asked yourselves, "How can we cooperate with the man in the White House? How can we show our bi-partisanship?"

How about showing some leadership for a change? How about leaving some hope for America to remain free, independent and productive instead of overseeing its repugnant slide into socialism and tyranny?

In February of this year Senator John McCain sent an appeal asking for support of a petition promoting the passage of an Obama initiative to raise 700 billion dollars for pork barrel projects. It was supposed to stimulate the economy. The following is a copy of my reply. Little did I know at that time that this would be the template for bill after bill which the Obamanites and their RINO cohorts would ram through Congress and down the throats of the American people. I reprint it here as a reminder. We have just witnessed the passage of the so-called Cap & Trade bill in the House of Representatives. It is now headed for the Senate, where no doubt, Senator McCain will again support passage. Cap & Trade which is actually an enormous energy tax on all Americans was opposed by citizens contacting their Congressional representatives by a margin of 50 to 1 against passage. They ignored us. And soon, we will sit by and watch as Obama transforms the best and greatest medical care system in the entire world into a socialist style, government mis-managed, bureaucratic failure. Or will you make Congress listen?

"February 3, 2009

Unfortunately I cannot join in signing your petition regarding the proposed 'stimulus' plan which is currently before the Senate. I cannot because it is a non-negotiable document. Anything the Republican caucus could possibly get from passage of this bill would be token changes in tax laws.

This is not a slippery slope. It is a headlong plunge into socialism. Obama promised to change America. What he did not clearly say was that the change he proposed was to change the country from a capitalist society into a collectivist economy of communist character where he is the Secretary General and the rest of us sit around and say, "yes sir."

Republicans had no voice in writing the current bill as passed by the House of Representatives and it is presented to the Senate as a perceived fait accompli. You are expected to vote for the bill because it is Obama's wish that you so vote.

The United States of America was conceived in liberty on principles of free men and free enterprise. It grew great through the individual efforts of entrepreneurs acting out of enlightened self interest, not by governmental planning and edict which is what the Democrats now envision for us.

This bill cannot be amended to any good purpose. It should and must be killed, here and now - in the U.S. Senate or else we shall be doomed to decades of descent before we can climb out of the communist hole into which we are sinking. It took the Russians 70 years to throwoff the unbearable yoke of collectivism. It may take us longer for we will have no USA to help pull us out.

You must realize that this is not the time for non-partisan cooperation with Obama. It is the time to finally stand up for what most Americans actually believe in - which is free enterprise, self-reliance and small government with low taxes.

Please point your energies in this direction. Use your support and your vote to kill this terribly expensive piece of legislation. Do not load us, our children and all their children and grand-children with un-payable debt and indentured servitude to a thankless government. The so-called economic stimulus bill will do nothing to stimulate the economy but will do much to destroy capitalism and freedom."

Needless to say, the Senator did not respond. There is so much more to say about government managed health care, but that is not the subject of this writing. The point I’m trying to make now is the great need for us to rise up en masse and stop the insanity that is highjacking our republic by insisting that Congress pay attention to what we want. The Senate will now address Cap & Trade. Next the House will discuss taking over your doctor’s office just as they have General Motors. Commit yourselves to voting out of office anyone now in Congress who votes for this destructive change in our entire way of life and let them know that now!

Have you ever heard someone say, "If we’re not careful, one day they’ll be taxing the air that we breathe?" Well, that day has come. The United States House of Representatives is considering HB 2454, a so-called Cap-And-Trade bill.

Just What Is Cap-And-Trade? Although being touted as an environmentally responsible system of controlling the amount of pollution released into the air by businesses, it is nothing but another federal government tax. The bill is over 900 pages long and, like the 800 billion dollar so-called stimulus bill passed earlier this year, no one in Congress knows what it really says. It is too long to read.

And maybe the biggest insult of all is that in order to get it passed, the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives has hired a speed reader to rush through reading the monstrous thing out loud to the members of the House. Such an act is not only insulting to us, it is ridiculous. How many times have you listened to a commercial on radio or television which closed with a high-speed reading of the "fine print" of some offer? Have you ever been able to understand any of what is being said? Neither have I.

And neither will the members of the House of Representatives. What I cannot understand is why any member of Congress to allow such a travesty to continue!

Cap-And-Trade is a scam. It is actually a tax on the air that we breathe! It is further an outgrowth of Al Gore’s now discredited "Global Warming" theory. There is a total absence of scientific evidence to prove that any of the climatological changes occurring in the earth is being caused by human activity. But if this bill is passed, Al Gore and his friends will make billions of dollars in profit from the buying and selling of "pollution credits."

These "air permits," as I like to call them, will be issued by the government according to what ever the government decides that each company or industry should pay for the privilege of using the air around their business locations. If a particular company doesn’t use or need all of the "permits" that company could then sell those extra "pollution credits" to some company which needs more.

Are you paying attention? Do you realize what I am saying? The government is going to first, tell each business enterprise how much carbon dioxide it can release into the air. Then the government is going to regulate how those allowances are used even to the point of reselling them from one company to another. The United States government will be creating an entirely new Black Market in which formerly free air will be sold and traded between businesses in the United States! Air!

You know what carbon dioxide is, don’t you? It’s what comes out of your lungs each time you breathe out. It’s what trees create. It’s a part of nature. The government doesn’t own the air. They don’t own the carbon dioxide in the air. They don’t, in fact, own the air that is in your lungs right now which you will expel into the air in the next few seconds. But they are going to regulate it. They are going to tell us how much we can ‘breathe out’ - they are going to buy and sell air!

Oh. I didn’t tell you, did I? The original "pollution credits" issued by the government? You have to pay for them. You have to buy them from the government. Can anybody say TAX? This is the tax that candidate Obama talked about when he told us that the cost of energy would go so high that some companies might be forced into bankruptcy because of it. The same tax which is going to cost each American family thousands of dollars in increased energy costs. That is one of the changes he promised and it looks as though it will pass Congress unless we all act to prevent its passage into law.

Understand that you won’t pay the tax. But you will pay for the electricity and the gasoline and the heating oil, the prices of which will, in Obama’s words, "skyrocket" once cap-and-trade is the law of the land.

The Republicans, to their credit, objected to the bill saying it must be read before voting on it. So, the Democrats decided to have the bill read at a super fast speed, a speed at which no one could possibly understand its provisions, just in order to say that the bill had been read. Then they’ll vote on it. Just like spitting in your face. They think we are that stupid. And if we do not rise up against this outrageous increase in our cost of living right now, perhaps they will be correct.

Contact your congressional representative as soon as possible. Call them on the telephone. Tell them you want them to reject HR 2454 and all other cap-and-trade schemes. You may not be able to get through on the telephone. If not, send an e-mail saying the same thing. If you have access to a fax machine, send them a fax. The form is of little importance. Be polite, but tell them that you are opposed to cap-and-trade schemes and other attempts to raise our taxes. I’m afraid that it is too late for regular letters through the mail. You must call, e-mail or Fax them now. Air is free. So is CO2. It’s a part of nature. Tell your congressman or congresswoman that you do not want them to put a tax on "the air that we breathe." Reject HR 2454.

Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, rose to power in 1933 along with Hitler and the Nazi party. One of his first acts was the burning of books rejected by the Nazis. With totalitarian control over the media, arts, and information in Germany, Goebbels perfected the "Big Lie" technique of propaganda. Followers were taught the principle that a lie, if big enough and repeated a sufficient number of times, would be believed by the masses.

A time for reason.

I read some of the blogs. I pay special attention to the folks who read them and make comments of their own, mostly about what the columnist or blogger said. I have noticed, since Obama became president, a growing current of resistance that even seems at time to threaten the peace of the nation. At first I noticed a bit of hard sarcasm which developed into jeers and insults but gradually over the days, the rhetoric has become intense. And while I am not at all happy about the turn of events in our federal government I know that it is neither prudent nor productive to speak of armed rebellion. There are established peaceful means for changing the staff who operates our federal government.

The problem mostly arises out of our collective apathy and our national preoccupation with basketball, babes and beer. Actually I mention only basketball for its beginning letter. I could have easily used baseball for example. In my view they are pretty much all the same in the drain they place on our common resources. Living examples exist in my own family and circle of friends - people who spend more time, money, interest and practical attention to resource draining activities than they do to the maintenance of our free political system.

Politics has evolved into a profession. One that can now be studied in college. One in which many degrees can be earned from law enforcement to political science. The result is that we have people such as Ted Kennedy who spend their entire adult lives in the profession of government. We have, as a nation, surrendered our representative government over to professional and dedicated volunteer governmentalists.

Governmentalists have firmly grasped the concept of withdrawing money from the public treasury for their own use and with those funds purchasing an ever expanding base of power. This theft of power from the states and from the people has occurred through the process of re-election to positions within the government. It is a simple process. One gets elected to congress or some other publicly elected office then uses that office to barter for votes in the next election. The so-called pork barrel bank provides the currency and the grants of favors to supporters and special interests pay for what ever number of votes will be required for the incumbent to be returned to power for another term ad infinitum et ad nauseam.

To many who have become aware of this problem, "term limits" has become somewhat of a slogan or watchword. However, when term limitations are discussed it is almost always in the context of limiting the number of terms (plural) a person may serve in one office. The most notable term limit now in existence is the one already being discussed as out of fashion since Obama’s election and that is the constitutional limitation on the office of president of the United States to two consecutive terms. Therefore, term limit proponents usually suggest three terms for congressional representatives and two terms for senators. And I always ask, "What for?"

Two terms in the U.S. Senate add up to twelve years, almost a career. Even more importantly, it is in the re-election process the damage occurs. Witness for yourself the last election. How much truth were you told? How many of the things said during the campaign could you then or can you now rely on? If you are a Republican, was your favorite candidate nominated by your party? If you are a Democrat, have developments since the election proved to be the expectations you had for the next administration?

At the risk of shocking some of you, I am forced to advise that politicians seldom tell you the truth. They sometimes lie. They sometimes make promises they have no intention of keeping. They almost always say what they think will get them elected, nothing else. John McCain told us he would protect the economy, but interrupted his campaign long enough to return to Washington and help pass a stupid, giveaway of our money to the control of one guy who had no idea as to what he was doing. Barrack Obama promised he would defend our right keep and bear arms, but very early in his administration urged the re-implementation of the so-called Clinton Gun Ban, the only effect of which is the encroachment on our right to keep and bear arms. Little things like that.

So, if politicians cannot, for the most part, be trusted to tell us the truth, what are they doing when they want to get re-elected? That’s it. They are getting re-elected. Nothing more. They use the power of their incumbency to purchase their return to office. For those who may not understand how this is done, I suggest you wake up and begin paying closer attention to the news.

And during subsequent terms in office they continue to expand their power base, expand the size of government, increase the tax burden and ultimately send as much money to their home districts as possible in order to repay their supporters and to insure their next re-election.

I would like for you to carefully read that last paragraph again. Did you see any reference to any political party? Did I discuss political positions or beliefs? This is truly and maybe the only actual bi-partisan effort we will ever see. They all want to get re-elected. You might wonder why. But if you do, then you haven’t yet noticed how much richer most folks seem to be after having served a term or two in government. The Obama campaign raised a reported 700 million US dollars to spend on the effort of getting him elected. The job only pays $400,000 per year. A return of thirty-two hundred thousand or 3.2 million dollars over the eight years allotted on an investment of nearly 700 million. Yet they all come out richer than they were when they went in.

Getting elected is a very important matter. And I have not even yet mentioned the retirement benefits which are the greatest the world has ever known for as little of two years of service. It is not surprising that so many, want so fervently to serve for so long in what is supposed to be a public service job. But why are so many successful at standing for election, campaigning for the position and then getting elected again and again and . . .?

The politicians win time and again because the voters who should be watching over them don’t pay attention. Or if they do, it’s usually too late. Almost two years ago now, I sent out one of my many politically oriented e-mails. One of my co-respondents wrote back to say that I should send no political e-mail to them for a year or so since the election was so far away. We were by that time already deep into the primary election cycle. But that was too far away for them to worry about politics. And for many the summer of 2008 was too far away from November 4^th. They did not want to be bothered with politics so early in the game. Many were just getting over the "March Madness" and baseball’s all-star game had not yet been played. How could they be bothered.

By the time many voters got around to thinking about the election, the winner had pretty much already been determined both by fact and happenstance. And now we all, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, Socialist and Libertarian all face the loss of our country, our way of life, the predominate religion, our common language and our freedoms. For those of you out there who are homosexual and are so ecstatic over Obama’s election, wait until you get a glimpse of Sharia law!

And it will be because we didn’t care enough. It will be because we were too lazy or too interested in sports or in spending our evenings in a beer can or watching the latest dumb-down on television. It may be because we didn’t want to be bothered. After all, the election was so far away. But don’t let me overlook the activists on the blogs, especially the commenters, those folks like many of you who post their ideas, responses, insults and name calling on the internet forums.

Those folks express the collective mind of America today. And it doesn’t look good. Posters are bitterly divided over the election, over principles, over parties. They accuse one another. They call each other names. Even those who try to discuss in a rational manner the pros and cons of their arguments are drowned out by the animosity which seems to drip from the discussion streams.

And amid the discussions, the insults, the threats and accusation there creeps day by day the hints, the suggestions, the urges - even the declarations that we should beat people up, that we should terrorize public officials and/or their staff into surrendering their public offices. The suggestions lean toward violence of many kinds which could inevitably lead to armed rebellion.

If you think that George Bush took us into Iraq without a clear plan and with no exit strategy, Imagine what it might be like if Americans began fighting Americans without even a principle such as slavery to divide them. What if we took up arms only in the name of throwing the bums out? Who would be the bums? Who would actually get thrown out? And who would replace them? Could I? Could you? Without a gun, without many guns and many people united with a solid and central purpose we would have anarchy. Our revered constitution would only be a memory. And for those of you who would like to see our constitution re-written or replaced, I suggest you compare its simplicity and brevity with the voluminous European Union’s new contract. Or compare with the tyrannical garbage that has grown out of the United Nation’s charter.

We have on file the finest contract for people to live together peacefully that has even been devised. Ideally, all we have to do is use it. The Constitution of the United States of America and its supporting documentation has for more than two hundred years provided the basis for our peaceful transfer of power every four years and for the protection of our property, our lives and our honor. Our government still works. Obama is president today because his people managed to get a greater number of votes counted for him that McCain’s could get for the GOP. That is the way it is supposed to work. Now, we can’t say for sure why Obama won this election. It is still too early. Years from now, honest historians will amass sufficient data to explain it. But we know enough to know that racial emotion played a great part in it. And we know that conservative’s disillusionment with the Republican party and their desire to punish the Republicans had a great part in it. And you may well be asking, "What has this to do with getting re-elected?"

It is in the ‘black-magic’ of party politics. The super-powers within the parties decided that Obama should be the Democratic candidate and McCain should be the Republican candidate. It was really Clinton running against Bush in disguise. In that sense it was a re-election. The drive, the energy, the ambition which motivates professional politicians ordained the minds and hearts of all the contenders to get their brand of power back into the seats of power. And this time the Democrats won, as we have heard so often from both Mr. And Mrs. Obama. In the final analysis, both parties wanted to get re-elected and spent money, influence, graft and favors in order to do it. And it is in that process that we, the people, lost the power.

So, let’s talk about what to do. Term limits? You bet. But I’m not talking about terms for an individual. I am talking about a term - one term for one individual. I will quickly tell you that I have no illusion about succeeding in getting our government to limit the number of terms a person could serve in public office to a single term. But as I’ve said in other venues, we can do it ourselves. We need to follow two rules. The first is to stick together on the plan. Everyone sign on to it. Believe in it. Practice it. The change won’t come overnight. It won’t happen soon at all. It will take a long time. But guess what? That’s about all we have now - a very long time before we get our government back - if we ever do. So let’s start now.

The second rule? Don’t ever return any political servant back to a public office for a second term. Ever. Let each successful candidate serve out the term elected to and send them home. Elect someone else for each succeeding term. Don’t let any single person ever again use our money, our property, our rights or our national resources to feather that person’s own nest by sending them back to office for a second term. There are over 300 million of us now. I don’t know if that is supposed to included the twenty to thirty million foreign nationals who have entered the country illegally or not. But out of the number of actual U.S. citizens there are a sufficient number of us to fill the needed offices for all time to come. I would gladly serve for two years. Wouldn’t you?

There are some problems, however. Those plush retirement plans for former elected officials of the U.S. government. Out. Gone. History. We serve the term. We get paid for serving. At the end of the term. We go home. The next day another guy takes over. Okay, the problems continue, I know. What about getting elected in the first place?

What about getting elected in the first place? Do as we always do. Let them spend the money to finance the election, but don’t let the political parties do it. Make the candidates and their supporters finance the election. We might even get to see them knocking on our doors again. Coming in for a glass of iced tea or a cup of coffee while they solicit our vote.

While we are talking about getting elected, why should we allow two or more of our elected members of congress to take off work for a year or more in order to get re-elected to the office we sent them to serve in already? We elected them. Why should they not be working instead of campaigning? This past year we had three of our U.S. Senators not showing up for work. They continued to get paid, but they were not working for us. They were out campaigning for the office of president. But if a candidate could only serve once, that candidate would have no reason to campaign while in office. And the person who wants to serve next won’t be on the job yet, so he or she could take as much time as they like to campaign.

People have said to me that it takes more than one term for a freshman to learn the job. I agree. And I will add, that I don’t want them to "learn the job." Learning the job means that the older members are going to indoctrinate the new guy into the old way of doing things and it’s off to the political party races again. No. I don’t want any one to learn the job. They can do that in a full weekend of orientation. Maybe they will start teaching courses in college on how to run a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Government is not magic. It is not science. It should be common sense. And if we could get government out of our educational system, our kids would begin to learn how to operate a government just as they might learn how to read, to write or to calculate numbers again.

One man, one vote, one election. One term. One nation, truly indivisible operated in the best interests of all of us. And then go home. That’s the kind of term limit I’m talking about.