OPINION

The Rural Council, Agenda 21: The Collectivist Impulse to Plan Other People’s Lives

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I’ve criticized centralization of power in Washington, and I’ve condemned efforts for global “economic governance.”

The simple message is that bureaucrats shouldn’t try to control our lives, regardless of whether those pencil-pushers reside in Washington or the United Nations.

The specific topic is a boondoggle project know as the White House Rural Council, but we also discuss a troubling U.N. scheme called Agenda 21.

Both are similar in that they are based on the idea that far-away bureaucracies (like this one) should have power over local communities.

These are points I made in this interview for Fox Business News.

When Obama argued the other day that he favored higher taxes and more redistribution because of his Christian beliefs, I was tempted to repeat something I wrote last year to draw the distinction between private charity and government coercion.

I’m glad I resisted temptation, because I received a much more entertaining response in my inbox today. Enjoy this rewrite of Psalm 23.

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Psalm 2012

Obama Is the shepherd I did not want.
He leadeth me
Beside the still factories.

He restoreth my faith in the Republican party.
He guideth me in the path of unemployment for his party’s sake.

Yea, Though I walk through the valley of the bread line,
I shall fear no hunger, for his bailouts are with me.

He has Anointed my income with taxes,
My expenses runneth over.

Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will live in a mortgaged home forever.

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Given the shortcomings of Newt GingrichRick Santorum, and Mitt Romney, I don’t like the part of about restoring “faith in the Republican Party.”

But that’s nit-picking. Kudos to the person who put this together. Very well done.