Part 1 (1/2)

A simple government.

Twelve things we really really need from Was.h.i.+ngton (and a trillion that we don't!).

by Mike Huckabee.

Introduction.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

-Barry Goldwater

Since Barack Obama was elected, plenty of books have been written criticizing his administration and accusing him of all sorts of things-from being a Marxist to lying about his citizens.h.i.+p to being a Muslim. But if you know me or if you're familiar with my commentaries on TV and radio, you know that I don't like to make politics personal. That's because I was raised to believe in the Golden Rule, and I don't know about you, but I certainly don't like being called names or ridiculed. So I want to start out by saying that if you've come here looking for a personal attack on President Obama and those in Was.h.i.+ngton, you should head to another shelf in the bookstore.

I don't doubt for a moment that Barack Obama loves our country and wants to make it better. In my political career, I've found that to be true, more often than not, about people who take a position different from mine. Respect and civility go a long way in campaigns and governance.

That being said, I have never been afraid to criticize a person when I think it's appropriate, especially when it comes to those who run our country. I believe that every American has a right and a responsibility to speak up when they're unhappy with the way our government is run, and that's why I'm writing this book. Because as much as I respect President Obama as a human being, I can't help but think that just about everything he thinks is good for America is actually bad for our present and worse for our future.

You are probably reading this book in February 2011, but thanks to the practical demands of publis.h.i.+ng, I'm actually writing it in the fall of 2010. As I sit here, our country is mired in a crisis that has grown progressively (no pun intended) worse since Obama entered the White House. Our national unemployment rate is stuck at around 10 percent; our budget deficit is spiraling to unprecedented levels; we've adopted a federal health-care system that promises to raise costs and worsen care, even though most Americans didn't want it in the first place. On top of all that, we face threats from abroad in the form of terrorism, illegal and out-of-control immigration, and two wars (though allegedly the war in Iraq is over) that we can't seem to win. Meanwhile, our image abroad is rapidly sinking to where it was during the Carter years, as we've turned our backs on some of our most trusted international allies, like Israel, in favor of ”diplomatic relations” with enemies like Russia and Iran.

We were promised better than this. The election of 2008 was supposed to signal the arrival of a ”postpartisan” presidency. Happy days! Joy to the world! Well, did that happen? Candidate Obama said he would discover common ground between the two major parties and come up with public-policy answers that both sides could consider viable. Instead, President Obama has shown himself to be the most most partisan president in my lifetime, hands down. In this respect, he has far outdistanced any political gamesmans.h.i.+p ever practiced by any president before him, whether Democrat or Republican. Bright as he seems to be, he consistently mistakes his election for a mandate to compromise our nation's future with breathtakingly sweeping plans like socialized medicine and so-called financial reform. And make no mistake about this: Those schemes and others have already saddled our descendants for generations with a mountain of debt that they can never pay back. (I'll have more to say about this later, with the scary numbers to prove it.) partisan president in my lifetime, hands down. In this respect, he has far outdistanced any political gamesmans.h.i.+p ever practiced by any president before him, whether Democrat or Republican. Bright as he seems to be, he consistently mistakes his election for a mandate to compromise our nation's future with breathtakingly sweeping plans like socialized medicine and so-called financial reform. And make no mistake about this: Those schemes and others have already saddled our descendants for generations with a mountain of debt that they can never pay back. (I'll have more to say about this later, with the scary numbers to prove it.) In our political tradition, as you know, it's business as usual for candidates to campaign with harsh words for the opposition. The problem comes when the bickering continues after the swearing in. A true leader's Job One is to bring people together, not just mouth partisan slogans, and as hard as it may be to believe in our increasingly partisan world, I've known people on both sides of the aisle who have exhibited such character. One of those people is former president and fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton. Even though he strenuously campaigned for every opponent I ever had in Arkansas-whether I was running for U.S. senator, lieutenant governor, or governor-not once did he stoop to personal attacks or snarky comments about my being a Republican. He treated his opponents with respect and civility.

Well, I guess these are different times. But my biggest problem with President Obama isn't his insistent partisans.h.i.+p; it's his reliance on advice from people who don't understand the real world that you and I live in. Obama has overloaded his administration with policy wonks and Ivy League professors because he speaks their language. Virtually no one on his team has had experience running anything; they probably couldn't even run a lemonade stand. Their abstract theories, airy plat.i.tudes, and unrealistic promises may sound nice on paper or in a congressional debate, but in reality these politicians are just trying to cover up their own ignorance.

You don't need the wisdom of Solomon to see that their lack of experience is the reason we're currently experiencing an economic crisis. Think about it. When you're a governor or mayor-or even a small-business owner-you don't have the option of printing money to cover your mistakes or to buy things you can't afford. I know. In Arkansas I had to balance the budget the old-fas.h.i.+oned way: The money coming into the state coffers had to be greater than or at least equal to the money going out. The result? Sometimes hard choices had to be made, but I made them. As those great political philosophers the Rolling Stones said, you can't always get what you want.

We have to hold the federal government to the same standard, and not only on the budget. On this and other issues there is a strong and building urgency to repair our weakened nation and rebuild the confidence of the American people. We need to go back to the first principles that the Founders built into our amazing Const.i.tution. That means, in part, that we need decisive action now, not professorial dialogue and insanely complicated schemes that kowtow to special interests (like the three thousand pages of the ObamaCare bill).

In short, we need a government that works for the people. We need a simple government.

Don't get me wrong: I know that many of the nation's problems are highly complex. But I also know that the governing principles that can solve them, if we work together, are simple. Justice, integrity, freedom-the basic notions upon which America was founded-are simple. Somewhere along the way, too many of our leaders have picked up the idea that it takes something like rocket science or brain surgery to deal with public problems. Wrong. When a new law is too long for anyone to read, let alone understand, it's too long, period!

I've tried to follow the same principle in writing this book. First, I've approached the various topics here with the simple simple underlying principles that helped make our country strong. Then, in each case, I've explored solutions that would be consistent with those bedrock ideals. underlying principles that helped make our country strong. Then, in each case, I've explored solutions that would be consistent with those bedrock ideals.

I'm not trying to win a Pulitzer Prize or impress the folks at Harvard, Yale, or Stanford-if they'd even listen to me! I'm writing directly to everyone who loves America and believes that it's still the greatest country in the world (and can become even greater once we get back to basics) despite today's serious challenges. I'm writing for people who aren't ashamed to eat hot dogs and hamburgers (in moderation!) and probably think that a meal of snails is better suited to birds and fish than to humans.

Simply put, in other words, this book is intended for about 80 percent of the American people. And if just half of that group would read it and take it to heart, my wife and I would be set for quite a few of the golden years! But more important, my readers would be empowered and energized to restore clarity and common sense to our national government, just as the Founders intended. put, in other words, this book is intended for about 80 percent of the American people. And if just half of that group would read it and take it to heart, my wife and I would be set for quite a few of the golden years! But more important, my readers would be empowered and energized to restore clarity and common sense to our national government, just as the Founders intended.

Along the way, I hope to tell you some things you've probably never heard and remind you of some important things you may have forgotten, while keeping it all entertaining enough that you won't fall asleep midparagraph.

I also promise to be honest-perhaps painfully and brutally honest, when necessary. My goal is to be clear and open, and if that offends some people I'm all right with that. Personally, I'm so sick of the hypocritical, cynical, uninformed nonsense I've read and heard lately that I'd prefer to risk having some readers hate this book because they did did understand it rather than have many hate it because they understand it rather than have many hate it because they didn't didn't understand it. understand it.

Of course, what I really hope is that, because you do understand the book, you'll love love it. Call me vain if you want, but I think you're going to! it. Call me vain if you want, but I think you're going to!

Mike Huckabee October 2010

CHAPTER ONE.

The Most Important Form of Government Is a Father, a Mother, and Children We Need a Return to Family Values

There's an old j.a.panese proverb that says, ”It is easier to rule a kingdom than to regulate a family.” I don't know who said this, but as someone who's done both (though I'd hardly call Arkansas a kingdom), I can say with absolute certainty that he was right.

I'll bet you've never thought of your family as a government. But when you get right down to it, it's the form of government that matters most-much more than Congress, or your state legislature, or even your neighborhood block a.s.sociation. Get your family right, and its strength will wind its way up to the highest levels of global power. Of course, the reverse is also true: When the family fails, so do the other organizing structures around it.

Why does a person commit a heinous crime-use a deadly weapon to rob someone, vandalize a school, rape a woman, murder a hapless victim for twenty dollars, or steal millions from investors (perhaps including friends and relatives) in a Ponzi scheme? Are these acts caused by incomprehensible wickedness? Are these people just plain bad? No, it's really very simple. These are people who failed to grasp-or were never offered-the simplest lessons of self-discipline, respect for others, and a strong sense of human decency. And where should those lessons be taught and learned? It's not the job of a school, a workplace, or even a church to provide these most basic of life lessons (though we shouldn't forget about them there either). And besides, even when we do rely on inst.i.tutions for these lessons, they usually fail.

No, these lessons cannot be taught by a teacher, boss, or minister. In order to create truly valuable and respectful citizens, these lessons need to be taught at home. By the time we enter school or start a job, we should have learned how to behave. I'm not usually a pessimist, as you probably know, but I'm afraid that if a child has not learned to behave by age four or so, he or she never will.

When I was a child and did something my mother found objectionable, she'd say, with some exasperation, ”Were you raised by wolves?” Of course (being objectionable), my immediate inclination was to whip back a smart-aleck answer like ”No, ma'am. I got it from you!” But I never did because I knew that the wolf in her would come out and probably chew me out. Plus, I knew what she meant: This was her way of reminding me that I was supposed to try to achieve a certain level of civil behavior. I might even demonstrate a notable difference from animals in the wild by using a napkin, saying a blessing before diving into a plate of food, or was.h.i.+ng up before sitting down to eat. Such civilized rules of courtesy, kindness, and unselfishness were expected of me not merely so that I could get what I wanted but because, quite simply, they were right. right.

To this day, I try to behave the way my mother wanted me to-not because I'm afraid of being grounded (my wife does that now) but because she taught me the difference between right and wrong and showed me by example how to behave. These principles originate, of course, from the family.

Okay, let me say it before you do: No family is perfect, and even children raised in wonderful families can turn out to be like wolves. Still, it makes sense that children nurtured with rules are far more likely to follow them than those given free rein to follow their most primal instincts of ”self first, others second.” In the national ongoing conversation about how to change ”government” and make ”society” better, I rarely hear a reference to the obvious starting place: the creation and nurturing of functioning families, in which a mother and a father bring up their offspring with the understanding that the older generation is training the younger to be their replacements.

This essential belief is not (at least it shouldn't be) a partisan issue, but sometimes it can seem like one. For example, President Obama, speaking to the West Point graduating cla.s.s on May 22, 2010, said, ”American innovation must be the foundation of American power.” Yes, innovation is important (as I will discuss in later chapters of this book), but, to repeat, I believe that the foundation of American power has always been and must continue to be . . . (drum roll, please!) . . . the American family.

On this issue, as on so many others, I cast my lot with Ronald Reagan, who said, ”The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pa.s.s on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedom.”

It should surprise no one-certainly it would not have surprised President Reagan-that those who now want to ”transform” traditional America recognize this truth from the opposite direction and have placed the American family smack in the crosshairs. You know this. You see it every day. The family structure that made this country the most powerful and prosperous in the history of the world-father, mother, children-is under a.s.sault today as never before.

As parents and even grandparents, what can we do? Simple. We fight back. What happens in our day to the traditional family will determine whether we remain a morally healthy nation of self-reliant families, for the most part, or degenerate into a decadent welfare state of shattered, chaotic, and dependent families.

If you think I'm exaggerating, a little history lesson might be in order. (Many of us somehow managed to get a high school diploma even with a meager knowledge of history, but I digress. . . .) In 1917, when the communists seized power in Russia, they immediately and frankly set out to destroy what they saw as the two biggest threats to their authority: religion and the family. According to an article in the July 1926 issue of Atlantic Monthly Atlantic Monthly, the Bolsheviks hated the inst.i.tution of the family with a fierce pa.s.sion. They forbade all religious ceremonies, which had the effect of turning marriage into just a piece of paper issued by a clerk. In turn, marriage could be undone in a matter of minutes by a piece of paper from another clerk. The ultimate aim of this new socialist state, so far as family was concerned, was to promulgate free love. Along the same lines, abortions were officially sanctioned and paid for by the government.

The article contained some startling facts to back up the report: It was not an unusual occurrence for a boy of twenty to have had three or four wives, or for a girl of the same age to have had three or four abortions. Some men have twenty wives, living a week with one, a month with another. . . . They have children with all of them, and these children are thrown on the street for lack of support.

The party's long-term goal? To throw families into chaos, thus making children loyal to the state rather than to their parents. To that end, children still living at home were told to keep a close eye on their parents and, if they criticized the regime, turn them in to the authorities. So now the young, after all, knew better than the old!

Almost one hundred years later, of course, the Soviet Union has collapsed. We don't live in the shadow of the cold war; but threats lurk elsewhere. The legacies of this ma.s.sive failed ”experiment” are the ideas of s.e.xual revolution that live on and wreak havoc in our own society today through legalized abortions (and the movement in favor of having them funded by the government), seemingly casual divorce (for the first time, in 2010 fewer than 50 percent of American adults were married), growing nonchalance about unwed pregnancy among teens, and, finally, the fevered attempts to extend the definition of marriage beyond ”one man, one woman.” Not even the heirs of Marx and Lenin thought of going that far!

Pull Up the Drawbridge From our friends across the pond, the Brits, we long ago adopted the idea that ”a man's home is his castle.” Fine, so far as that goes, but we must remember this: Castles were built not as mansions or showcases to impress the neighbors but as fortresses that would provide protection from ruthless enemies. Not to sound paranoid (just realistic), but I believe that in America today, as in the Russia of 1917, the family has lots of enemies-not all of them clearly identifying themselves or riding up armed and mounted on a steed. So parents really do need to draw up the drawbridge against a widespread culture of vulgarity and violence. You don't have a drawbridge? That's fine, because you have something better-parental guidance. If you can monitor the influence the world has on your kids and fulfill your parental responsibility by acting as the filter representing traditional values, then you will be, in effect, keeping out any enemies threatening to take over your family.

When it comes to questionable influences, just where do you draw the line? Well, you could start with a simple premise about what's beaming in on the airwaves: Much of it deserves to land squarely in the moat. But some stuff is worse than other stuff.

Not to give government a pa.s.s here (we'll get to them), but I'd argue that pop music is often the worst culprit, with ”reality TV” (talk about untruth in advertising) running a close second. Without parental guidance, an impressionable girl might learn that the way to succeed is to shed her innocence as early as possible. That means, for starters, that becoming recognized in the public eye as a talented young woman involves seminudity, plastic surgery, and maybe even a stripper pole. Also, posting naked pictures or a s.e.x video on the Internet is a guarantee of instant attention.

This is, to some extent, just a contemporary exaggeration and exploitation of the old story of the teen years. Many girls, particularly those who don't have a dad at home, believe that male approval in the form of a boyfriend is essential to existence. I don't think any sane person who doesn't live under a boulder would try to argue otherwise. Some boys sense this very well (h.e.l.lo!), pressuring girls to ”get with the program.” One good message that did come out of feminism-that girls can write their own program instead of just trying to please boys-is now out the window among many young people, especially when dealing with their peers.

Okay, so you're fully aware of all of these influences, and you're standing warily at the drawbridge. Or maybe by now you're up on the battlements armed with cauldrons of boiling oil. Next step, aside from insisting that your home conform to your values: You have to be vigilant about what goes on in your local schools. That means get out the catapult! To be effective, your reach needs to extend as far as it possibly can.

Here are some things you might want to look into. Is your first grader reading about d.i.c.k and Jane getting a puppy named Spot, or is he learning how nice it is that Heather has two mommies? Is your eighth grader studying the fruit and vegetable exports of South American farmlands, or is he practicing how to put a condom on a banana? Or is your child not learning anything at all today after being sent home for wearing an American flag T-s.h.i.+rt on Cinco de Mayo-or any other day?