Americans have a great heritage of rebellion to tyranny. It's ingrained in our culture. Every year on Independence Day we remind our children of the sacrifices that were made for our liberty.

Our Founding Fathers rebelled against an out-of-control government after a long train of abuses and usurpations – a government not unlike our modern central government.

Today, executive power abuses have become standard operating procedure. Warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus, “enhanced interrogation” (if it's not torture, why don't our police departments do it?), the list goes on and on. One administration does it to foreigners, the next does it to Americans - even claiming the authority to assassinate U.S. citizens.

This may be shocking to those who don't follow politics closely, but every day Washington D.C. acts more and more like the barbaric government we declared our independence from 234 years ago.

The Democrats' solution to federal abuses of power was a “change” in politicians. Nothing changed except the rate of government growth. The federal government continues taking over huge segments of the economy, usurping more and more powers that were originally reserved for the states, massively expanding health and welfare programs when we can't even meet previous obligations, enriching special interest cronies with taxpayer money, indebting future generations to incomprehensible levels, failing to protect our borders, and on and on and on!

Many Republicans not only want to change politicians, but they also want to provide new guards for our future security. The 2010 Idaho Republican Party State Convention last weekend was filled with ideas for restoring the timeless principles behind the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Unlike Idaho Democrats who shut the press out of their platform discussions just weeks ago, the GOP Convention was transparent and open to the public.

I was one of the Delegates to that Convention and would like to highlight some of the ideas that were presented. Of course, some will work out and some will never work their way through the extensive legislative process. I will divide the ideas into two categories - free market economics and government accountability - and explain some of the background reasoning.

ECONOMICS

The election of Miracle Man Obama - not only can he feed the six billion, but he can also provide them with housing, transportation, communications, defense, medical care, and retirement - proves that government schools have not accurately taught economics for generations.

Parents, even if you supplement your child's education with public or private schooling, it doesn't remove your primary responsibility. Please make sure they learn great American principles such as free market economics.

Let's define some basic economic terms and discuss how they relate to our circumstances. To learn more, I recommend the Ludwig von Mises Institute (http://mises.org), a research and educational center that offers many thousands of free resources on economics and liberty.

• Inflation is an increase in the money supply. There is an average of a two year time delay between monetary inflation and the resulting price increases. So when will we likely see the results of the “bailouts” of late 2008 and the “stimulus” of early 2009?
• Deflation is a decrease in the money supply or when its rate of growth declines in relation to the increase in the production of other goods. It results in price decreases and was experienced for over 125 years of America's history (until creation of the Fed in 1913). Deflation means your money buys more and more instead of less and less.
• Velocity is the number of times per year the average dollar is exchanged in transactions. The great scare of 2008 caused a decrease in economic activity - lower velocity - which produced deflationary results in 2009. As the initial scare fades into the past, economic activity will increase and velocity will produce inflationary results.
• Hyperinflation is an extremely rapid increase in the money supply. There are many examples of the devastating results of hyperinflation in just the last century. Savings are wiped out virtually overnight. The ensuing economic chaos has resulted in riots and sets the stage for a police state. Having a sound money system in place would be our golden parachute.

Republicans passed another resolution and updated the platform to stress the importance of honest money as the foundation of a prosperous market economy. What's the biggest reason to restore sound money?

1. Big Government: The feds currently print unlimited dollars for “bailouts” and “stimulus” and to pay for the welfare/warfare state, reward their cronies, and buy the cooperation of state and local governments. Because they can't print unlimited amounts of gold and silver, lovers of Big Government despise sound money. Restore honest money and stop Big Government.
2. Transfer of Wealth: To illustrate how this works, let's say there was a total of $1 trillion in existence 10 years ago and you had worked, scraped, and saved $100 thousand for retirement. Everyone knows that the cost of groceries doubled in the last decade. Your $100 thousand now only buys $50 thousand worth of groceries. How did your other $50 thousand in earnings vanish into thin air? They doubled the money supply to $2 trillion (see point #1) which cut the purchasing value of your savings in half.

Republicans also called for reducing the tax burden to spur job growth, replacing Idaho's income tax with a fair tax, repealing the counterproductive Contractor Registration Act, and no fee increases without decreases in taxes.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Today we're told that the federal government alone gets to define its power. What a frightfully dangerous scenario that would be. If only one side in a contract gets to interpret the terms and can change them on a whim, it is no contract at all.

I think our Founders would be heartbroken, but I don't think they'd be surprised. They were well acquainted with the tendency toward tyranny when power is unchecked. They did their best to cripple their new government to prevent the centralization of power.

Unfortunately for America, partisan extremists from the left and the right are guilty of excusing violations of the Constitution when it's “their guy” in power, and then condemning the “other guys” until they reacquire power. What can we do to curtail abuses no matter who's in power?

Government accountability was a hot topic at the Idaho GOP Convention: from calling for the state checkbook to be posted online to holding Republican politicians accountable by getting their pledge of support for the party platform accompanied by a statement declaring any disagreements they have with it.

Many of the resolutions and platform changes focused on state's rights, restoring the proper balance of power and reigning in the federal government:

• We believe Idaho should strongly assert its sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
• We not only affirm our commitment to the tradition of state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws, but we also specifically call for the Idaho legislature to nullify the federal health care bills of 2010.
• U.S. Senators were originally appointed by the state legislature to represent state's rights in the national legislature, while Congressmen represented the people. Enacted in 1913, the 17th Amendment changed the way Senators are elected and state's rights have been ignored ever since. We call for repeal of the 17th Amendment.
• Redistricting Idaho should result in a new legislature made up of one senator from each county and representatives from districts based on population.
• We reject any federal interference in intrastate direct-to-consumer food commerce.
• All federal and state police actions should be approved by the county sheriff, the chief law enforcement office of the County.
• Juries have the right to determine both the facts and the law, and are not bound by the judge's interpretation of the law.
• Voters should be asked to approve debt-financed city projects.

I got to serve on the Resolutions Committee at the Convention. We were presented with 41 resolutions and passed 24 of them. Surprisingly, it took less than three hours to do it. When they were presented to the whole Convention the following day, several of them were shot down, including one that called for the establishment of an Idaho constitutional militia to protect against a disaster or similar occurrence.

With record attendance at this year's Convention, I believe it was a great success and much good will come of it. I thoroughly enjoyed it!