The news story will also have a video to go with it. Keep
checking the story to catch a snippet of Ed Nixon’s
speech.
When you know Richard Nixon’s brother is in the
room, it isn’t difficult at all to pick which one he
is. For one thing, there were only a few men in Wednesday’s meeting
of the Bainbridge Island Republican Women.
But even if there were 100, Ed Nixon would be unmistakable.
He knows it and seems to be comfortable in his overall role as
the brother of someone famous. People around the world ask him why
he looks like Richard Nixon, he said.
Nixon was on Bainbridge Wednesday to speak and to sell a few
books.
He’s written The Nixons: A Family Portrait,
which deals much in the family and little in any of the
controversial stuff about his brother.
During the speech he did talk a little, when prodded, about his
brother’s presidency. An audience member said government didn’t
grow as it had in other administrations. Ed Nixon said any
president succeeds at the mercy of the Congress that’s with him.
Richard Nixon didn’t agree with wage and price controls. He didn’t
think they would work. But he let them go forward to prove whether
he was right or not.
Ed Nixon is clearly a Republican loyalist. He said Democrats are
risking the future of children, key to his overall message that
family and children are what matter most.
He invited himself to any Democratic functions available. “If
you want me to talk to the Democrats, tell me where and when,” he
said. Nixon then asked if there were comparable “ladies” groups for
Democrats, and took a shot by asking if there are any “ladies” in
the Democratic party.
A major portion of his prepared speech was a recitation of
principles he said he learned from his father, Frank Nixon. Frank
was, according to Ed, a bit blunt, but had a real affection for the
Constitution, particularly the Preamble. He drove home the
principles to his children, one of whom would become president.
Ed, for his part, took what he remembered of his father’s
teachings and rewrote it in 1992. The New York Times, he said,
wasn’t interested. We’re just the Kitsap Caucus on the Kitsap Sun,
but he was willing to turn over the text of those principles.
Here’s the transcript of that part.
Giants
by Ed Nixon
The global failure of efforts by government “to provide for the
for the general welfare” merely proves the correctness of our
Constitution’s Preamble — “promote” and “provide” are not
interchangeable.
Academic political scientists and policy advisers should know
that prescribing “jobs” will not cure a sick economy. Good jobs are
the product of a healthy economy. And government-sponsored job
development teams too often result in the expansion of
government-subsidized employment in the guise of “investment.”
Effective therapy aimed at the causes of persistent unemployment
must begin with employer development teams. We need to promote the
aspirations of present and future innovators, developers, managers,
marketers, operators, investigators, i.e. entrepreneurs, to become
employers, free to expand, to reinvest earnings without tax on
gains, and inspired by a new freedom from bureaucratic
statisticians.
Poverty cannot be abolished by government prescriptions aimed at
the forced redistribution of wealth. Subsidies attack the symptoms,
keeping patients at rest but crippling them in the process.
And union-led strikes too often destroy the means to employ,
yielding a net loss — or only a doleful gain — for the employed.
Inevitably, bureaucrats will try to restore “equality” at the
expense of national wealth by imploring Members of the House to
initiate more entitlement spending regardless of revenues — the net
affect of which is always a reduced value for our currency.
Unhealthy disparities in income can be avoided but not by merely
subsidizing the poor. Indolence is the culprit, an illness
prevalent even among casino speculators who “earn” their living
exclusively by playing the trends of usury, exchange rates,
inflation, or any other “system” of artificial values.
Growth that intensifies disparity in personal income eventually
leads to wild swings in economic trends, population explosions
among the poor, and incubation of violence in crucibles of
superstition.
Meaningful jobs cannot be created directly. They can only follow
the development of employers and the promotion of wealth that is
earned, retained and reinvested.
When recruiting new employees we should always seek those who
have dreams of their own — those who perhaps look forward to
employing others, or who certainly expect to contribute
individually with exemplary quality in their own output, thereby
giving others reason to dream.
In the final analysis, craftsmen’s pride is the root of all
equality, whether related to tangible products or intangible
ideas.
Promotion of the general welfare calls for statecraft built from
experience. Wise leadership acknowledges past errors and patiently
pursues solutions, while political petulance seeks to provide
immediate gratification regardless of past failures.
Immigrants arriving here from more socialistic countries must be
made to understand that we did not become a great nation by seeking
to reduce everyone to the least common denominator.
The framers of the Constitution were giants in their time.
So now, let’s grow some new giants who understand the difference
between “providing for the common defense” and “promoting the
general welfare.”
