The only excuse for the existence of government is the defense of individual rights.

(And before the howls of government lapdogs begin, it is clear that the defense of such rights include protecting and defending individual rights against the cronies and criminals inside and outside our state and national borders.)

The only legal or justifiable reason for government, is the defense of individual rights.

 

The intent of any government should be to serve and protect individuals from those who would do harm to others. The only power that government has is that which it takes from or that is given to it by individuals. It can perform a fair job of protecting everyone, but it cannot guarantee happiness to any one, and should always be prohibited from promising happiness or a special anything to a favored few.

There is nothing that government can do for you that it does not take from you. So, eventually, if its power is unchecked, it will become your turn in the barrel.

When we surrender our rights to government we become a ward of the state. As such, we cheapen the human right to be identified as an individual.

As wards of the state, we become a group of victims needing the guidance of a tool we’ve invented – a construct, based on hopes, wishes, and yearnings, that somehow has become our superior in intelligence and natural rights and with greater values and principles?

The very idea that this invented and constructed thing — a thing without intelligence or an empathy for emotional considerations or a moral standard for reasonable behavior – will voluntarily and freely act in in the best interest of mankind is a stinking mess of vomit from sick minds.

Once given birth, government grows to benefit government. To achieve this end, it divides us into groups of victims which, it claims, must be protected from other groups (that it identifies as more privileged).  But . . .

. . . . privileged is created by special allowances in laws for special reasons to exclusively create advantages or questionable rights for a certain class of people, professions, corporations, etc., that are not allowed for the average individual – as shown in tax laws,  regulations, restrictions, and permissions.

Government over-rides (corrupts) individual rights by inventing “rights”, which it gives to private and public limited liability partnerships, trusts, foundations, corporations, monopolies, and conglomerates. And for “Public Service” in government. All such  entities are non-human creations, without empathy or understanding, and unable to comprehend an excuse of either good or evil in the intent of a law that allow them to exist – or of the eventual results.

Yet, in every right or special construct in the paper formation of some law or regulation that benefits a non-human entity, that is not the same as it is for an individual, there is always a way to fleece the individual.

Every government program has a way to fleece the public.

Today, under State Capitalism, the partnership between Big Business and Big Government, there is no accountability for, and no limiting of, government’s action.

We, as individuals, create the government we have . . . and we are responsibility for it.

It’s why we have a vote.

The very idea that there are limitations on the  federal government’s executive / administrative branch is all but heresy in today’s political and judicial environments. No limitations exist.

The Supreme Court, the judicial branch, has lost respect from years of ignoring and violating Constitutional limitations and the role of the states.  And non-principled rhetorical criticism by law firms and law school professors ignore centuries of established common law and limitation on government to skillfully argue for destructive decrees. Appointed Justices, more politician than supporters of Constitutional mandates and constructs, have supported, and are supporting democratic socialism.  And there are no limitations.

And no limitations exist on Congress, the legislative branch. None.

Our founders, who had first-hand experience and hard-earned knowledge knew, as did Ronald Reagan, that “government is not your friend.”

When created, government becomes an entity with a primary objective to survive – to grow, and it feeds on the lies that another project or program need a solution that only a “benevolent government” can provide.

Government creates more government.

Knowing the danger in the nature of all its existing forms, the founders limited the actions of their new government to improving “the general welfare.” The Constitution allows Congress to collect taxes to pay for the general welfare of the United States, but not for the people or the individual states.

As James Madison observed, If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may apoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.”

The Constitution never granted our government power to act in malevolent ways against the natural rights of the individual.

But today, however, government has obviously seized the raw power to do these things – and more – that Madison feared: Taking, annexing, the bounty from one segment of the population to give the illegal funds and / or benefits to another segment, and further dividing the nation by its hostile attitude to individual freedom.

This is plundering in its most basic form (to steal or remove something precious from something, in a way that does not consider moral laws or is more severe than it needs to be).

What is more dangerous, however, is that plundering had its beginning, and is continually permitted, by emotionally-disturbed or mentally-deranged Supreme Court Justices appointed to office by emotionally-disturbed, mentally-deranged, gutless members of the U. S. Senate, who have the power to advise and consent on any action by the executive branch.

When government declares that a particular segment or group of individuals need help, it is saying that the group or its members are either too emotionally, physically, or intellectually incompetent to act in their own interest, Through its copious flow of ‘crocodile tears’ government uses contradictory and often illegal arguments to sell an excuse that our “society” (or some group) is responsible for the circumstances. It sets groups against group to enhance a perception that they are seen and treated as a subspecies of humanity, and can only survive through the benevolence of government.

Government uses the negative perception it creates to set groups against groups.

Congress has subverted the very foundations of the nature of limited government as established by nation’s founders, The consequences from its action deserves the condemnation of all Americans. Not to do so is to surrender our birthright.

Congress routinely delegates their powers to the executive and judicial branches, so we now live in a nation where literally everything involves the federal government.

Never was such power conveyed to Congress as is now given to or assumed by them. On the contrary, it was always clearly that the old Congress was limited to the enumerated powers, and that was explained in general terms.

The founders realized that an all-powerful government – one without unchecked or limited power – is a refuge for scoundrels and plunders, who view the population as its resource and its servants. In creating a new nation, they tried to create a government with only one excuse: The defense of individual rights and the rights of the respective states (whose citizens were risking their own lives).

Government should never be the playground for plunders and crooks of every stripe.

Every action by government should be restricted to protecting every individual from enemies inside and outside our national borders. It should never interfere in our personal lives. Its sole job is to protect them –

There is no other legal or justifiable reason for government.

When the lovers of government and those in government claim that it is there to do what individuals cannot do, they lie. Its why those who know that government’s power must be limited are described as “deplorable” and “garbage” and “terrorists” by the supporters of government.

There is no word or phase too loathsome for the socialists and other totalitarian lovers of the world to use in the fight for conquest over individuality and / or control and management of resources. Truth is the enemy; facts cannot be considered.

There is nothing that government can do for you – or anyone – that it does not take from you.

We, as individuals, create the government we have . . . And deserve.

It is why we have a vote; to hold government accountable.

Every action by government should be restricted to protecting every individual from enemies inside and outside our national borders.

Government should never be the playground for plunders and crooks of every stripe.

But it is . . .

                                              return to     Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

                                                                             Special Thanks to      The January 2025 Streetscene Newsletter

 

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The nation’s largest employer . . .

Want to…”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), the 26th President of the USA, was talking about want to in stating that We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done.”

 

Want to” … yearning … raises a lot of questions.

We begin life with want to and it seems we end life yearning for someone or something.

Yearning never quits.

When it comes to “want to”, you look at our leadership’s (or citizen’s) ability to adapt, evolve, lead with forward thought around a vision or a concept or a cohesive strategy, etc., and Paris mostly resemble Sears or Blockbuster video.

We cannot even agree on what historic restoration is or a vision or concept of what the Plaza and downtown area should be or a plan or platform that offers a cohesive concept of Paris, that will or would rebuild Paris as the North Star of Texas or as the Star of the Red River Valley.

It appears that we’ve even settled for a lack of “want to”…? Our want to seems to have packed up and gone . . .

. . . We just want to get higher, which is appreciated by Toco and Sun Valley.

Think not? Then, how long has it been since we lost the “want to” to pick up trash and stop the littering?

WHY can’t we stop it…? Shouldn’t we want to … ?

Paris is our home. People who litter crap in our kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms (and theirs). Are they really who we want as citizens?

They‘re the idiots our present policies are encouraging.

In some places, the litter almost makes it hard to see the weeds, which brings up another question: WHY are in-city weeds, that have not been cut or mowed for over 5-years, allowed to exist?  Ordinances exist that (supposedly) control in-city weeds and grasses, as well as junk, storage buildings, parking in front yards, etc., to help “Keep Paris Beautiful.” But when it comes to enforcement, the “want to” must be hiding in one of the dusty Master Plans at City Hall. 

Before we can Keep Paris Beautiful we need to Make Paris Beautiful (Yes, the Paris Chamber realizes that the ‘want to’ seems to be lacking, but it sure needs done.)

Is it want to or a lack of it?

A developer will gladly jump on a project that seems profitable. If a project appears unprofitable, they won’t do it. If they demand money to do it, they’re admitting it likely will not be profitable but they’re hoping that there’s a sucker somewhere.

So, WHY is the city’s leadership giving the public’s tax dollars to developers who likely believe a project will not be successful or profitable? Maybe Paris should change the city’s name to Suckerville?

And why are the City of Paris and the PEDC giving tax money from some citizens, who are barely able to make economic ends meet, to industries that have money and assets of their own?

That surpasses want to; it’s stupidity.

Why not establish a program that exchanges building materials for “sweat equity” by those with lower-incomes who have the “want to” and the ability to improve their own property (instead of giving their tax dollars to private firms that have money)?

Want to or –

– is this community damaged goods by not wanting to do the right things in favor of wanting “my pocketbook first.” Or, as some claim, Paris is full of people who are too soft-hearted to “hurt people’s feelings…” Or, as others claim, “They don’t want to…”

More likely, for waaay too many years, the leadership majority operated with the same idea: That every dollar circulating in Paris belongs to them. There’s no other logical reason why Paris has so many deteriorated neighborhoods.

They forgot – and we forget – that we’re all mutts; not a show dog among us.

Paris people are not who you think they are

They are not who they think they are

They are who they think you think they are

They will browbeat you until you think you are

who they think you are

You do not want to be who they think you are

Or be who they think they are.

 

When you’re dead, you don’t know you’re dead.
The pain is felt by others .

The same thing happens when you’re stupid.
-Unknown

 

                                                               return to     Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce

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How much benefit-bang for your tax dollars are you actually getting?

Do you – like the Paris Texas Chamber of Commerce – ever wonder just how much is the actual benefit from taxes? For each of the previous eight years, budgets for the City of Paris, Texas, have increased, just as they have in most communities.                               

Ultimately, clear evidence on how much money should be spent, and on what, remains elusive. And how much time can you afford to waste trying to wade through two or three hundred boring pages of government PDF filled with obscure acronyms and confusing charts?

Budgets are complicated—they take many twists and turns—and plenty of info is buried under different boxes and buckets.

The City of Paris budget grew at a compounded 3% annually rate for each of the previous 3-years. Now, it jumps to 4.28%, as Administrative costs for two non-needed assistant city managers and a public information officer, plus support personnel, must be covered. And there is a planned $128 million ($259,201,276 million w/interest) over-priced wastewater treatment plant that will be an excuse to increase the budget for years to come.

But if a city’s budget is growing as its population is decreasing, shouldn’t some benefits from spending need questioning​?

Most Texas’ communities have gained population, but the Paris population dropped from the 2000 high of 25,898 down to 24,476 in 2020, according to the U. S. Census.

This in a period when Texas gained 4.3 million new residents, the largest population increase of all 50-states: 20,851,820 (2000) to 29,145,505 (2024), a 22.8% gain. The state budget in the same time period, however, went from $99 billion (increased teacher’s pay $3,000 annually and promised a $1.7 billion tax cut) to $221 billiona 223% increase. (The 2024-25 budget increased to $321.3 billion.)

Paris’ population numbers were saved by the 1.3% increase in Lamar County growth – from 49,822 in 2010 to 50,484 in 2020.

Unfortunately, 18.2-percent of in-city Paris families live in poverty today – and the percentage is growing; thanks to government.

Making matters worse, those living in Paris, age 65-and over, have increased from 16.7% in 2010 to 19.2%.

How much actual benefit do they get in taxes?

Politicians – governments – cheat. Legislation is written so that legislative members can say they reduced taxes, while increasing taxes. Texas cities are limited to a 3% annual property tax increase, politicians claim. They lie and they know that they are lying. So, how much actual benefit to they get in taxes?

Their laws allow governmental units to create several budgets: an Original, an Amended and an Actual Budget.

Then, there is the General Fund—the main pot which includes police, public works, etc.—an Enterprise Funds (items that function like a business, such as water and sewer fees, but are part of the local government. Some of these can get confusing because some are owned by government but managed by another party, like trash pick-up and disposal).

There is a Capital fund, where you have to watch out for things like debt, which often hides in all sorts of places. And pay attention to “inter-fund transfers”— where money is moved from one bucket to another.

Generally, Paris brags about the inflation-increases in retail sales or another point added to the Hotel Occupancy Tax, and other items, which are not counted as a “property” tax, but adds to government spending.

Our city government, like most governments, spends too much on amenities, which means we’re not all benefiting from taxes as much as we should . . .

Experts” in government know that As citizens often lack experience in the public sector and finance, citizens tend to have difficulty understanding how government works.”

Ronald Reagan knew: “Government is not your friend…”

But people in government know those not in government are stupid. THEY know what’s best for us!

Government is the nation’s largest employer. How do you think those 22-million employees vote? Taxes pay their salaries, as well as retirement, health costs, and other perks. Are their decisions based on your interests or “self-interest”?

Do you really think that the law-makers, who create laws that are not in the best interest of those they were elected to serve, don’t know what they’re doing?

We’re not getting our money’s worth when it comes to taxes; however, when it comes to global socialism, we’re getting what we pay for . . .

 

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