Category Archives: city government offenses

city government offenses, City Politics

Zero Budgetry vs. Voodoo economics

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Fort Smith City Government—Voodoo economics/taxes October 25, 2018

T.R. headline: City outlines long-term equipment plan.

Director of Finance, Jennifer Walker presented her plan to the Board of Directors Tuesday evening last.

“Walker said she asked all the Department Heads for the anticipated needs for the next 5 years”.

“This is a living document, so we can make lots of changes to it”. A 5 year plan is an absurdity and an effort to effect an open-end tax mill. Additionally, the Department Heads in reality always inflate and never contains protection or explanations to taxpaying citizens, ending in abuse of power.

The solution for sensible government spending should demand a Zero-based budgetry. I will define again.

Zero-based budgetry means every government department, e.g. fire, police, streets, parks, libraries, ad infinitum does not begin with a budget with built-in increases year after year, it means every single expense has to be anticipated and accounted for that year and each succeeding year begins with reducing the out-flow. With competent management there are some departments that could actually increase revenue and some departments are certainly not necessary with duplication of duties and personnel, e.g. some called assistants, deputies, vice, etc. and must go.

Not using Zero Budgetry is an invitation for bigger government, higher taxes, inside trading and more incompetency’s.

I first wrote on the subject in an article titled “With no accountability there is no hope”, published September 23, 2015 which appears on my website.

Joe McCutchen
Arkansas Freedom dot com

city government offenses, City Politics, Corruption, County Offenses

Incompetence or Malfeasance? Sports Complex

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Incompetence or malfeasance prevails. Transparency please. October 13, 2018

The River Valley Sports Complex, back on front-page center stage. This time to appeal the verdict against the city on said RVSC and in all likelihood file further criminal charges against RVSC participants.

What is absent in the Times Record Article 10/10/18 are at least 3 questions which remain unanswered and nobody except yours truly seems to want to ask or know.

There are at least 4 members and perhaps more of the Fort Smith City Board that may have been around when this curiously concocted plan was hatched. Possible suspects are Directors Settle, Good, Hutchings & Catsavis. Hutchings was on a couple of administrations back.

Question number 1. Who authorized this notorious scheme of former Senator Jake Files (R) & Democrat Election Commissioner Lee Webb? And why?

The 2nd question & most obvious one, why didn’t the then and current Park’s Director exercise extreme daily oversight of the project, and more particularly of both politicians?

Partner Jake Files is now residing in a federal prison in El Reno, OK with the strong possibility of more charges filed against him: therefore the final question being why is Lee Webb not being held legally accountable for his participation in the RVSC fiasco? The T.R. stated specifically that Lee Webb, Jr. stated he was a “principal partner of RVSC”, which I believe demands investigation & litigation.

The absence of answers to the stated questions leaves no doubt that the RVSC deal was and is corrupt to the core. What is the position of the Federal Prosecutor?

Joe McCutchen
Arkansas Freedom dot com

city government offenses, City Politics, Forced redistribution

Dysfunctional city government punishes taxpayers

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Re: The Times Record front page story August 16, 2018—“City streets prone to flooding”

August 18, 2018

Below are some of the items highlighted in the article, but cost to the taxpayers goes unmentioned as well as the causes.

1. Flooding is the result of drains not cleaned in years, plus OLD drainage plans
2. Street Dept & Police forced to CLOSE several roads , plus street teams had to be used for “mitigation” work
3. City NEVER had a drainage system cleaning program which is common around the country. Cleaning pipes would “mitigate” the flooding problem
4. State Dept. of Transportation admits flooding on Towson Ave. (Hwy 71 portions) is caused by the fact it was built 75 years ago and never updated, plus flooding on Rogers Ave is technically Hwy 22 which is also under the state’s jurisdiction. (The state neglects, along with the city)

The article failed to make the grade due to the lack of research into the causes of these decades old serious problems. Here are just a few historical facts which gave rise to this ongoing fiasco.

In the year 1985, citizens voted on and passed a specified/dedicated 1% street/sewer/waste water tax which remains in force to this day. By 2010 the tax had generated $650 million, $200 million more than the recent and 3rd Federal Consent Decree issued to the city of Fort Smith by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

There has been no stated amount of revenue generated by the tax in the last 7 years, but it is fair to say in the ensuing 32 years the total amount could approximate $1 Billion that have fallen into city coffers by the 1% street/sewer tax. And “we the people” are the recipients of bad streets & a failed sewer system.

The most recent EPA mandate of an ESTIMATED (we all know what that means) $480 million, plus a $300,000 fine and 12 years to complete occurred in Dec. 2014, totaling 39 years of apparent malfeasance & misfeasance, absent sewer and ground water complete overhauls.

Adding insult to injury, City Manager Carl Geffken now proposes to add another 12 years to the Federal Consent Decree, making a grand total of 51 years (1/2 century) that Fort Smith city government will have failed to address the faulty sewer & ground water deficiencies. Why?

In the meanwhile an ESTIMATED $1 Billion is unaccounted for and they recklessly involve citizens’ money in meaningless, curious & unnecessary pursuits without citizens’ knowledge or permission, resulting in a change of the image of the city, likely for private personal gains. A few include the recycling debacle ($52,000 monthly for 3 years) replete with no transparency, the Files/Webb Softball $2 million Complex fiasco, the bribe by Delta Dental to fluoridate Lake Ft. Smith against voters’ wishes, citizens’ money poured into the nascent Marshal’s Museum (originally billed as a private endeavor), $700,000 yearly into the failed Convention Center, the discovery of undeposited checks from Van Buren for water usage stashed away in someone’s desk drawer, alleged city business conducted surreptitiously by email, and the list goes on & on & on. Corruption in government is endemic.

How about some independent audits, some real investigative reporting, and some police investigations? Where did the money go—who got it and what happened to it? Taxpayers & rate payers (e.g. sewer bills increased 167%) deserve to know and the perpetrators deserve to pay.

Barbara McCutchen
Arkansas Freedom dot com

city government offenses, City Politics, Education Morass

Will the reign of voter stupidity continue?

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Will the reign of voter’s stupidity continue into the August election? July 29, 2018

It appears the fix is in.

But before, examples of Fort Smith voter ignorance/stupidity.

Voting for the Fort Smith Public School Millage ludicrous increase. Taj Mahal’s do not educate and putting $120 million in the hands of the present School Board & new Superintendent is fraught with potential misadventures. Observe past actions. Also Brubaker has no Superintendent experience.

The reelection and elevation of Matt Pitsch (The Screw) from the Arkansas House to the Senate. Pitsch has reeled in over $700,000 in the last 5-6 years as Intermodal Authority Executive Director of the phantom Slack Water Port in Van Buren. His former running mate, Jake Files in the State Senate, among other things, passed a bill to enhance their ability to draw vast sums of travel per diem. Now Pitsch wants to hire an intermodal “expert” to travel with him to intermodal conferences around the U.S. Specifically to Union Pacific and Ports America conferences, who he presently thinks will do business with his phantom port. Pitsch’s Slack Water Port is a scam and the Chamber’s prints are all over it, why?

The Screw conspired with Gov. Hutchinson to defeat the only two true conservatives in the Arkansas General Assembly. Pitsch is the “Enforcer” (the Screw) in the Arkansas Senate. Enough!

Casually travelling through and around Fort Smith it becomes obvious that someone or some entities are spending a ton of money to elect George McGill who is now State Representative for District 78 to the office of Mayor, a position that pays $1400 per month—why?

The next thought that comes to mind is that this is a Griffin/Sicard operation. What do they expect to get from Rep. McGill—it ain’t love. Another thought—is it to change the form of government where the mayor runs the city?

Then the matter of Spradling School Principal Robyn Dawson seeking the City Director at large Position 5. More double dipping and conflicts of interests. So what is Superintendent Brubaker’s position on this matter? Two government employees (Dawson & Pitsch), absent large amounts of time from their government positions. Is he going to reduce her salary? If so, how much and who will take her place when occupied with city business+, oh yes, another vice, assistant, deputy, etc. etc.

It is simply stupid to elect any government employee, past and/or present, to another government position. They all look to government to solve citizen problems, real or concocted. Taxation, taxation, taxation.

Wayne Haver is another ex-gov double dipper candidate for Mayor.

They all amount to Hod-carriers for the Swamp. Asa Hutchinson is a card-carrying charter member of the Swamp.

As Ron White said, “You can’t fix stupid”.

Joe McCutchen
Arkansas Freedom dot com

city government offenses, City Politics, Forced redistribution

Small towns have Swamps too!

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July 15, 2018

Re: “Fort Smith Development Solutions”: the first words out of City Mgr. Carl Geffken’s mouth=taxes & funding (what a novel idea) and mimicking other Arkansas cities will not bring success, i.e. NW Ark.

Success will only come when we ID our own resources: introducing appropriate new ideas, entrepreneurship, & building on our past history—all absent in the present city government. The present Mayor, the next Mayor, the Board of Directors & the City Manager have long ago burned out like an expended roman candle.

We are observing the results or lack of results by past and present city governments who citizens unfortunately see fit to retain for decades. Not smart.

Again, suppressing new ideas, methods, ingenuity and permitting city insiders to dictate the whole tenor of business by citizens will not bring success. For example, the present Board, City Manager & City Attorney are so enthralled with all their self-serving aggrandizement, e.g. their stupid/arrogant appeal to the Ark. Supreme Court recommended by their greedy lawyer who advocated for the appeal, especially since County Prosecutor Dan Shue and the County Sheriff said what the Board members did was a violation of the FOIA and bordered on criminality. Taxpayer cost? High 5 figures.

Standing in the wings waiting for election time are two full-time self-serving, 30 year graduates of the government public welfare trough. Why not bring some fresh air & honest enthusiasm into the city and vote for the 3rd non-insider candidate—young, smart, innovative and will bring exposure to the downtown swamp?

It is obscene to allow our total city government to end up with a huge surplus. Zero budgetry must be implemented and in this case the surplus returned to the citizen taxpayers.

Joe McCutchen
Arkansas Freedom dot Com

city government offenses, County Offenses, Federal Government, State government offenses, U.S. Government offenses

The Government Machine!

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It’s Not the People, It’s the Machine
By Michael Gaddy

October 5, 2009

“Government is an agency of force which can and must be employed against every deviationist. And this is only to say again that the government must oppose the individual. Therefore the “good” man in government is like a priest with a machine gun. The mechanism does the harm. The man who operates it merely pulls the trigger.” ~Robert LeFevre, The Nature of Man

Every two years in this country there exists a mania we call elections where those involved in the electoral process work endless hours and spends billions of dollars in an effort to put “good” men/women into elected offices. This, each person believes, will improve/change the government apparatus and everyone will be better served. This is analogous to believing that if one could place the right person on my Harley it would perform the tasks of a dump truck. The machine (government) can only accomplish that which it was designed to do: all governments, in their evolutionary process, eventually turn on their progenitors; the machine eventually rules the individual, no matter what “safeguards” have been put in place.

Nowhere is that more evident than where we are today in this country. No matter who is elected to operate the machine, the machine continues in its quest to destroy all it considers adversarial to the goal of total control and domination.

The writings of LeFevre tell us that man has long been fascinated by the phenomenon of the government apparatus and seeks to rationalize the continued corruption with one of two explanations. Either the people elected to run the machine were/are evil, or if the proper “safeguards” had been installed, “they would have escaped the evil their government was busily engaged in inflicting upon them.” I believe this perfectly describes our present dilemma, for those who voted for Obama wonder at how the campaign promises he made have been forgotten or the changes made were not what they expected. The opposition believes Obama to be an evil person. No matter how evil a person might be, as an individual they are unable to visit such tremendous evil on the world, without the power government provides. In turn, electing “good” people to run a gangster device will never deliver the hoped for product. LeFevre asks the question: “…then how does it happen that so many administrations of good men have been able to do so many evil and harmful things to their subjects?” As a country, we widely differ on exactly what administration has been good or bad. There are millions who believed George W. Bush to have been a “good” president, while millions believe Obama to be accomplishing “good” things, yet both have visited tremendous evil on the world, including their own supporters.

Individuals in this world have less freedom, are more and more controlled and coerced by government and continue to be robbed of the fruits of their labor, yet all this has occurred under the administrations of the “best” our country has to offer each election cycle, from both sides of the political spectrum. Isabel Patterson in her book, The God of the Machine, provides what she believes to be the answer. “…What good does it do to have a saint of every conceivable virtue operating a guillotine? Personally, the man may be above reproach. He may have the highest of morals and ethics. He may be imbued with a passion for doing good. But the mechanism he is hired to operate cuts off heads. He may dislike to cut off heads. He may weep with true sorrow whenever a head falls into the basket. But he was hired to pull the rope that lets the knife drop. And when it comes down, off comes the head. That is the way the tool works.”

This methodology is, in part, accomplished with government’s admonishment there is a higher purpose in life than being an individual. Ironically, this rebuke always comes around to serving the machine. John F. Kennedy said to “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” It was not the country we were being asked to put foremost in our lives, but the machine. The government and its willing shills in the media and academia have been able to cloud the difference between the country and the government so that in the minds of many, they are inseparable. That is why, in today’s world, all who oppose the machine have been deemed “domestic terrorists.” The spirit of individuality, or just wanting to be left alone, cannot be allowed to flourish, but must always be seen as the enemy and therefore destroyed.

People create government to control that which they fear. The machine enjoys its continued growth and strength to the spirit of fear among the people. Different people fear different things; in a great number of instances that fear is of people who think or act differently or ideas with which they disagree. The machine therefore evolves into a mechanism that seeks control over everyone and everything. Limited government is an illusion. Safeguards put in place to limit the scope and range of government are gradually eliminated as more fearful entities appear, or are created, requiring continued growth of the machine. Franklin was correct; trading freedom for security leaves the people with neither. The constant meddling in the affairs of other countries produces enemies of the machine and are converted into objects of fear for the people. Here we have the vicious cycle; more enemies require a larger and more powerful machine, which produces more and more enemies to fear.

Individualism and the wish to just be left alone by those who do not wish to control others is the mortal enemy of the machine. If the individual can exist without this desire to control others or seek power over them, the need for the machine no longer exists. The government machine’s survival depends on convincing the people that the anointed among them, selected during the electoral process, can indeed take the government back to a less intrusive and more friendly status. Throughout our history, this has never happened.

People decide to become involved in government for basically two reasons. They either want the power and control over others and the wealth that brings, or they believe by becoming involved in government they can limit the power of the machine. These folks, no matter how well intentioned, become the “priest with a machine gun.” The machine continues to control and destroy the lives of others, while the “good” person in government pulls the trigger.

The machine will continue to create items of fear for the people. The fear of an economy going bad brings on illegal bailouts and controls of the economy that have the opposite effect intended and provide untold riches to supporters of the machine. This creates more fear among the people and enlarges the machine. The fear of being unable to pay for needed medical care creates fear that could give the government vast control over the people and their remaining money. The fear of the dreaded Communist, Muslim or person of different skin pigmentation, creates fear in the people and grows the machine’s arm of oppression: the military, law enforcement and the new scourge of private contractors. The fear of a pandemic in the form of some new exotic disease (created in a laboratory) brings the ability to control the masses with unneeded and potentially harmful forced vaccinations. When the machine seeks unparalleled growth, it creates false flag events to terrorize the population, bringing on new and more terrible laws and regulations, again to eliminate its greatest threat, the individual.

The machine has legions of faithful followers who willingly steal, intimidate and even kill for their paychecks, monies stolen by the machine from the production of their victims through intimidation and threat. These people are nothing but whores who care not for any oath they might have taken, but instead enjoy their unlimited, unrestrained power over their fellow citizens. These people will come after your guns, violate your rights, force you to be inoculated with harmful vaccines, steal your money and private property and place you in a detention facility if you dare resist, and be proud of the accomplishment. These people are not elected, but will always remain the real force of the government machine. Those elected to public office become the easily replaceable figurehead. It is accomplished every election cycle.

History teaches the machine always collapses under its own weight and corruption. Its loyal supporters are rewarded for their service with executions. The question is: how many freedom loving, liberty-seeking individuals must give up their freedom and/or their lives before this happens?

The Best of Michael Gaddy

city government offenses, City Politics, Forced redistribution

Twisted Logic

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TWISTED LOGIC May 6, 2018

Times Record, May 6, 2018: “Potential lawsuit is another twist in RVSC’s history”

Mardi Taylor In her above editorial states: “Whether the city of Fort Smith files another lawsuit regarding the unfinished River Valley Sports Complex remains to be seen, but it’s pretty clear more than $1 million in taxpayer money is unlikely to ever be returned”. “ Still, we support a new lawsuit because it sends the message to the Fort Smith taxpayers who approved a tax to help fund the project back in 2012, that the missing money—their money—is still a big deal”.

Ms. Taylor, you do have a twisted logic regarding economics, admitting Files & friends will never payoff the millions, then you pivot and suggest another perfectly unwinnable lawsuit should be filed costing taxpayers tens of thousands more!

Speaking of protecting taxpayer money you are perfectly willing to allow citizen taxpayers to be gouged again by the Fort Smith city attorneys.

Do you know how many tens of thousands of dollars that have already been paid out by citizen taxpayers for unwinnable lawsuits by the city attorney on behalf of the City Board of Directors that could conceivably amount to other tens of thousands of dollars? Now this is a “big deal”.

Now to the really Big Deal and the heart of the real crime, possibly entwined in major abuses and perhaps criminal conduct by the Fort Smith City government that has never been answered: why was the RVSC awarded to two politicians? Then that laden with the facts they were not bonded and were not subject to official city oversight of the project, and the Board’s continuing to fund the failed project right up to Files & Webb’s last gasp in this more than stupid, corrupt endeavor.

Joe McCutchen

P.S. Isn’t it strange that not even one Board member was curious enough about the project to drive out and take a look?

Arkansas Freedom dot Com

city government offenses, Education Morass, Political Correctness - The Destroyer

Funding follows failure

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Education/an academic fraud April 29, 2018

Recently citizens have been besieged by city power-brokers, i.e. banksters, CEO’s, aspiring politicians, and other self-servers pertaining to the $120+ million millage increase.

The above are celebrating a 5 year “educational plan” that proposes to rebrand education, but does not explain how or why.

All forms of public education have already been transformed from the individual to a collective. Individual initiatives, thought processes, have all been stifled and replaced by government mandates and the The Frankfurt School that fathered Political Correctness. Not to be omitted are the 60 years of illegal immigration invasion, principally by Mexicans and now Muslims, Indians, Africans, Central Americans, etc. egged on by corporate America, e.g. Tysons, Simmons, OK Foods, etc. This practice has literally destroyed public education and cities like Fort Smith that is aiding in the destruction of infrastructure, our way of life, our culture and Western Civilization under false flag of Diversity.

All the above across our once preeminent nation allowed by continuing to re-elect politicians at all levels and totaling ignoring the U.S. Constitution.

So why to spew this screed when all the above is readily accessible by simple logic & observation.

What caught my eye was a letter to the editor in the Times Record by R. Trent Goins, CEO of the Mexican owned OK Foods.

His letter reads with excitement why citizens should endorse and vote for the $120 + million millage increase. Here is an example why big business & politicians are courting the passage of the millage increase.

A quote from CEO Goins, “As our community develops, classrooms are getting more crowded”. This quote is obscene. These classrooms are being crowded due to invasions by illegal aliens that CEO Goins hires daily. His actions are also criminal and self-serving, i.e. 8 USC, Sections 1324a, 1324c, 1644, to name a few. Included in these laws are felonies, fines & prison terms regarding aiding & abetting illegals.

Not one word in the Public School’s 5 year plan that mentions core academics which every school in Fort Smith is failing dismally and cannot even pass a dumbed down curricula.

Joe McCutchen
Arkansas Freedom dot Com

city government offenses, Education Morass, Federal Government

Another in a long line of Education “Vision” Failures

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Headline T.R. 12/19/17 …”School Board okays five year plan” with a Vision 2023 December 21, 2017

The multifaceted plan presented by the School Board accompanied by a montage of 180 citizens that allegedly constructed the 5 year plan. Pure hogwash—straight out of the U.S. Dept. of Ed. and the anticipated 5 year disease to be carried out in the district is to be transmitted by Superintendent Doug Brubaker. Brubaker & his acolytes claim the 5 year plan was a local creation. When the plan is researched it demonstrates a direct attack on children’s minds, particularly the “bright”, compliments of the U.S. Dept. of Education. Brubaker and his 180 public relations committee unfortunately are speaking for 87,000 citizens who had nothing to do with crafting the plan. The 5 year plan has now evolved into a one year plan.

The 5 year plan is right out of Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto” and Hillary Clinton’s “It takes a village”. The Hegelian Dialectic is what is at play here—look it up. Politicians and bureaucrats have long relied on the Hegelian Dialectic to sell their Marxist agenda. The first part of the plan ——-“Engage in high quality instruction”, followed by “will be taught by highly qualified professionals”. What this statement blatantly says is there are no highly qualified professionals or teaching methods in the FS school system. What all good Marxist’s do simply means that government will re-train existing teachers to follow the Marxist line while the faculty will be salted with instructors who are purebred Marxists out of the federal government stable to further indoctrinate our children.

A brief summary and partial list of the DOE demands for the FS school district.

1. Each student will have equitable access to programs, etc. Question: Specifically what are the programs and do they not now exist in the district? Government using the word Program (observe) is a dangerous term, i.e. erasing citizen’s constitutional rights.

2. Instruction—“each student will engage in high-quality instruction”, meaning teachers are now providing sub-par teaching methods and where are the high-quality teachers coming from?

3. Each student will be instructed by highly qualified professionals—source, numbers and cost? “Qualified” means what Dr. Brubaker? What do those remarks say about our current teaching community?

4. Equity in instruction…translation: reduce every student to the lowest common denominator to match the mental deficiencies of the invading 3rd world multicultural jungle; thereby suppressing citizen/student Americans’ individual creativity & independent thought/achievement.

5. Government planning is for complete control of your child’s life cycle (birth to death) for whatever government may perceive their thought patterns should be, e.g. the workforce (another Marxist term). Your child is & will be further programmed for life’s journeys, where to work, live, and play, etc…under the aegis of force & surveillance.

6. Of course, government’s ultimate plan will utilize its blend of technology with “go-at-your-own-pace” (minorities) that will undermine genuine learning & academic core knowledge.

Public schools are indoctrinators from birth to death. As I speak the government is short-circuiting your child’s mind and body producing a nation unable to defend their God-given & constitutional rights.

Reducing children’s minds to a common denominator, all by design, serves two major purposes, to create mass unbridled diversity which is subservient and falls under the spell of government, making it easy for them to be controlled, not so easy to rein in white American youth & adults. 3rd World minorities & many Americans, unfortunately are mesmerized and easily controlled by government dispensing unearned largesse. It’s all about votes, the Collective and Global Governance.

Absent in Brubaker’s faux plan is the most important facet, academics! Lowering standards has already been accomplished. To allow another such a plan being foisted on parents and children is an absolute crime. Teachers have become government robots held captive by the AEA & the NEA and completely devoid of individual critical thinking, accompanied by omissions, falsehoods & revisionism.

Technology is government’s best weapon. Absent core subjects which are the foundation of all real learning experiences. Many if not most school subjects have been squelched or attenuated. Real education cannot be achieved under such circumstances.

Dr. Brubaker’s plan has crossed sabers with the U.S. Dept. of Education. He states he created this 5 year plan. Information coming from the DOE states, “Feedback from our stakeholders indicates that the previous 5 year update cycle was not frequent enough. In response, with this 2017 update we commence a pattern of yearly smaller scale updates”.

The game is obviously to make citizens believe the plan comes from local sources when in fact it comes from government via Dr. Brubaker.

Oh by the way, the cost??!!

Joe McCutchen
arkansasfreedom.net

city government offenses, City Politics, Politicrats, U.S. Constitution

The Founders’ Constitutional Republic has been murdered…Most foul.

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ROLL BACK THE YEARS TO CIRCA DEC. 5, 1788 December 11, 2017

Imagine if you will Colonial Williamsburg, VA, about 8 or 9 in the evening. A group of men sitting around a large table in a tavern enjoying their pipes & ale, while seriously discussing how they might prevail against the attacks on the recently signed Constitution (September 17, 1787). One of the principals of the attacks was the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, who in debate was brilliant & eloquent. Two of his numerous political positions were that a President should be appointed for life and Governors would be determined by the federal government. Other issues which were heatedly debated were the “General Welfare” clause (abused at the outset & grossly abused now) coupled to his belief the Constitution conveyed “Implied Powers”. Other of Hamilton’s visions were not unlike that of England’s George III’s government that American patriots had fought against for 8 years to secede from the choke hold he had on the commoners and they ultimately won and produced a free & independent American Republic.

Sitting around the table were a number of the colonies’ leading patriots, i.e. George, Patrick, Lighthorse Harry, Benjamin, Thomas, Samuel, James and others. They were discussing what parameters they had to prevent Hamilton’s visions they knew would ultimately lead to a tyrannical government. So sad, that is where we are today…Hamilton prevailed.

Suddenly, a patriot burst through the tavern door and informed those at the table that the Williamsburg Town Hall meeting had concluded in a discussion that would level a tax on Williamsburg’s businesses. Does this ring familiar?

Did the Patriots march down to the Town Hall with a cadre of Blue Coats and George commanding, to protest, arrest the pro-tax traitors, or hang ‘em high. None of the above occurred. Remember: this war was fought for the “right of self-determination and to be secure in their persons, homes, businesses”, i.e. the rights of man to be free from oppressive, corrupt government.

The gentlemen seated around the table simply asked the question without emotion; was there support for a tax?

You see, in 1788 Americans were truly free and independent and indelible facts that guaranteed citizens would be extremely watchful in protecting their newly fought for independence. Citizens of today long ago lost their vigilance on our evil governments.

One would have expected the courageous patriots sitting around the table the word TAX would have elicited an emotional outburst. Their reaction was stoic.

Simply put, the colonists lived under a new form of government, the Constitution nationally & locally TOWN HALL MEETINGS FOR DISCUSSION, and concluded at a later date for TOWN HALL MEETINGS FOR DECISION—the reason the gentlemen were not irate…freedom & transparency were at work with citizens deeply involved. Far different from today where we have allowed ourselves to be politically extricated from the process while being forced to pay all the bills for government follies.

Town Hall Meetings assured there would be no force used, theft, lies, and intimidations…all the methods used by today’s politicians. Corruption abounds!

The Town Hall concept was the capstone for transparency & honor. Tragically this concept was swept away many years ago by unscrupulous politicians & bureaucrats and actually accelerated with the Lincoln Presidency. Note the State of the Union today—too large in area, too many unassimilated cultures, too populated and again government corruption reigns supreme; to ever have a chance to return to a true Republican form of government. President Trump’s mightiest efforts will never clear the swamp. Americans unfortunately identify with political parties as opposed to truth, honor & courage.

Such is the case today. Observe Fort Smith, Arkansas’ City Government wallowing in a plethora of misadventures under-girded with malfeasance and misfeasance. The city is presently engaging in processes giving Fort Smith control over more millions taken by force & deception. Most of the money will end up in the General Fund where there is no citizen oversight or accountability. The city government & their enablers tightly control the tenor of business while citizens pay the tariff and “we the people” can only be described as their serfs.

I am incensed that we the people have allowed all governments in the U.S. to lay claim to everything we own, from mind to property—everything our Founders fought against, e.g. the two new taxes and bond issue the city government proposes violates our person.

An excerpt from one of Patrick Henry’s Speeches, “THE GOVERNMENT CAN TAX YOU AT WILL AND THEN PUNISH YOU IF YOU REFUSE TO PAY, (with the barrel of a gun) YOU HAVE LOST YOUR LIBERTY. THEY MAY TAKE INTO THEIR OWN HANDS THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN, THEY MAY ASSUME THE PROVISION OF THE POOR (GENERAL WELFARE CLAUSE GROSSLY ABUSED)” All the edicts in the quote unfortunately came true. It is precisely what the Fort Smith, AR government did Dec. 5, 2017 with their proposing to use force (an unconstitutional act) to collect what they term “a $100 fee”. Fees, licenses, permits, etc. are rawboned taxes. What the city fathers are doing is the exact opposite of what the Founding Fathers fought for and created—freedom from political pressures, abuses, & criminalities. Remember, in the early days of our Republic the people were the Decision Makers, not self-serving, abusive politicians.

Citizens, are you aware that the city of Fort Smith is the highest taxed city in the state and clamoring for more and that Arkansas, by a huge margin, is the highest taxed state with regard to our bordering states.

Joe McCutchen
arkansasfreedom.net