America's Youth vs. Big Government

We all know that our public school system is failing and American’s math and science scores are dropping internationally, but there’s another area of academia which is being neglected at school: the Law of Natural Rights.

Kids these days are never presented with the important study into the foundation of Natural Law and therefore blossom into adults, clueless on what government’s involvement into our lives should be. Instead, they are taught in government classes basic facts about our federal houses (never mentioning their inability to solve any problems, of course), briefly mention the Founding Fathers (without contrasting Madison’s and Hamilton’s ideologies), and discuss some of the larger Supreme Court decisions (such as Roe vs. Wade).  Natural Rights are rarely, if ever, mentioned.  This is a huge concern for the future generations of Americans, as it is only through the understanding of our Natural Rights that we can begin to understand the Founders’ intent when drafting the documents that would create our system of governance.  As the size and obtrusiveness of our government continues to balloon, a lesson in Natural Law is necessary if we are to return sanity and freedom back to America.

What are our Natural Rights?  Where do they come from?  What do they have to do with government?  The answer to these questions should be understood by every American and should be required on the exam to gain citizenship.  Sadly, if Jay Leno’s ‘Jaywalking’ (the segment where he asks people off the street simple questions) is any sort of barometer for the basic knowledge of everyday Americans, I’m sure we’d be let down with their answers to the above questions. Let’s break the cycle of ignorance and solve these problems.

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Within the past couple of weeks an article was released that does a great job describing the political divide in the United States.  Written by Angelo Codevilla and published in the American Spectator, America’s Ruling Class — and the Perils of Revolution brilliantly explains how we have a “ruling class” in this country that believes they are superior to the rest of the country.  These people feel they deserve the right to decide how others lead their lives.  On the flip side, Codevilla labels the remainder of the country the “country class”.  The “country class” encompasses the majority of Americans who disagree with the big government regime and are not part of the political and intellectual elite.  The battle between these two classes will surely determine the direction of the country.  Our book actually captures much of what Codevilla draws on in his essay, albeit in a much less eloquent manner.  The youth of America truly belong to the “country class” and the “ruling class” of big government Democrats and Republicans, intellectual elites, and mainstream media have determined that they know better than us and have pledged to direct our lives and our behavior through their progressive vision.
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Today is a landmark day for Steve and I, our book is finally available on Amazon.com! It has certainly been a long time coming, but we believe that our hard work and effort (363 sources!) has paid off, as we’ve created something that can help the young people of America as we continue through this economic and political crisis.

We have sent out media packets to various talk radio outlets throughout the country and are hoping to do a media blitz in the months leading up to the November mid-term elections.

Now here’s the part where we ask you to buy our book and to tell your family and friends about how great the concept is   Seriously though, we do truly appreciate your support, and hope that our months of work and hundreds of dollars spent to bring you this book can change a few lives.

You can purchases (and review) America’s Youth vs. Big Government for only $14.95 here

A question I am often asked when talking about our book is why and how we decided to write a book.  There is no simple answer to that question.  In fact, it was a culmination of many events that led us to this project.  Some of this is detailed in the preface and introduction to our book, but I thought this would be a good place to give the longer version.

Tim and I were both raised in a middle-class, conservative family in a wealthy suburb of Milwaukee.  The county we lived in is one of the most conservative areas in the state, if not the entire country.  We were taught the essential conservative ideology of a hard work ethic, respect for religion, fiscal restraint, etc.  Unfortunately for us, during our formative years, Clinton was leaving office after his “cigar incident” and Bush was coming in as the new leader.

Not knowing better at the time, we threw our support behind “W”, believing he would embody the true conservative principles we believed in.  The older we became and the more we watched politics, we began to see that Bush was not much different from his predecessor in many regards.  We believed him and the other Republicans when they told us that social security reform was paramount to our country and that the wars in the middle east were necessary because they had weapons of mass destruction.  Again, promises from the campaign were broken as the Republicans governed with little to no input from their constituents.  Debt was piled on and unconstitutional actions such as domestic spying and wiretapping are now legal through a cleverly disguised law known as the Patriot Act.  (On a sidenote: nothing was more hilarious than watching the reaction of the progressive left in Madison while at school in the year 2000.  I still take comfort remembering the scenes of protest and disgust by out of touch professors, administrators, and brain-washed students)

I was living in Hawaii and working for large real estate developer in 2008 when the bottom fell out from our economy.  I saw firsthand the destruction of private wealth and the effect on markets, employers, and employees.  Nearly our entire staff was laid off within a year and the project significantly scaled down.  The Bush administration as well as nearly all of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, fear-mongered the country into bailing out the very banks who so foolishly started the mess in the first place.  I knew that this move was wrong, no matter how much they tried to scare us into believing it was the only way out of a full-blown recession.  The markets needed to correct on their own instead of simply delaying the inevitable sovereign debt crisis.  This last action of the Bush administration and the subsequent blunders of Obama were true turning points in my belief that a large and powerful federal government was an UNNECESSARY EVIL.  I finished up with the  real estate project in July of 2009 and headed back to California.

My funemployment began with a six week trip to Europe to figure out what to do next.  As I hiked through the Alps for two weeks, meeting up with a group of Brits, I was able to engage in many interesting political discussions.  Everyone I talked to was appalled and confused when I told them about Obama’s disingenuous plan to unite.  The Brits, Dutch, Italians, Israelis, Australians, and many others simply could not believe that the world savior was indeed a hoax.  I learned a lot about the politics of other countries during these conversations.  I realized that although our political system is severely flawed today, it was nowhere near the shape of many of the other European-socialist governments.  This was the first time in my life that I truly learned to appreciate the freedoms and civil rights that we in America often take for granted.

Upon the conclusion of my trek in Switzerland, I knew that my immediate destiny would be to tell the story of the amazing liberties that we possess as Americans and, more importantly, what we need to do in order to preserve them.  I dedicated much of the rest of my trip through Italy, France, and Spain to furthering this goal.  By the end of the trip I was convinced that I needed to help the most vulnerable generation maintain its liberty.  The young generation of America faces a long road of unsustainable debt and government takeovers of our once (long ago) free markets, compounding the danger of losing the inalienable rights that we all possess.

Immediately upon return from my trip, I had breakfast with Tim in Ocean Beach.  I remember very clearly the whole meal because I was nervous that he would not think it was a good idea.  There was no way I could take on this project by myself and I needed another liberty-minded, smart person to work with.  Since we were both unemployed and shared the same values, I knew it would work.

After my pitch about the project, emphasizing the part about the uniqueness of the idea- no young person had written a book about the fate of their generation.  Trust me, we searched Amazon for hours to be sure!  Tim immediately liked the idea and agreed that we should continue down the path.  The concept blossomed since that day in October 2009 and by late November, after much research and discussion, we were on our way toward co-authoring a book!

People have been wondering how our book cover came into existence and the story is an interesting one (at least to me).

When you write a book, spending countless hours researching, writing, reading, rewriting, editing, and writing some more, there are two things that are ever-present in your mind: the cover and the title.  Some authors are lucky enough to have those concepts developed early on in the process, but most think to themselves, “man, I hope I can come with a sharp cover design.”

Let’s face it, despite the old axiom, we still judge books by their cover.  And we should, it’s human nature.  Why do we like attractive women?  Because genetics tells us that she will be able to rear beautiful and healthy children.  We must plant our seed in worthy mates.  Why do we like attractive book covers?  Because it shows that the author put time and creativity into his entire project.  It is easier to believe that the book will have redeeming quality.

Lousy covers give me the impression that the author is either boring, was in a rush to publish, or doesn’t care about his work; all three reasons why we gloss over these books and gravitate to ones with pretty designs or captivating images.

With that in mind, Steve and I both knew that we had to knock it out of the park with our book cover.  It had to have powerful images.  It had to be instantly recognizable.  It had to be cheeky.  It had to be professional.  It had to stand out on a shelf full of books.

With those specific prerequisites in mind, we brainstormed endlessly, throughout the project, on how to becharm the potential reader.  I initially wanted the cover to look like an Xbox game.  Us young people love video games, and I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek suggestion of being locked into combat with government similar to how we are with our fellow gamers when we play Modern Warfare 2 online.

We also played around with the idea of the entire front cover being an iPhone, with the text resembling an SMS conversation.  We initially liked this idea so much that we moved forward with design, however, we weren’t blown away with the results so that plan got scrapped like the many other contenders.

Ultimately, the idea of what you see today hit me when my brother Scott and I were grilling out, drinking some beers.   “Why not a comic book cover?”  That way we could easily illustrate conflict between a young person and some sort of aggro Uncle Sam.  The kid would be a skater and Uncle Sam would be clinching some sort of legislation.  The idea was solid enough to begin moving forward with, and after Steve gave me his blessing, we continued.

The next hurdle took weeks to get across; finding the right illustrator .  I thought it would be difficult to get an artist on board, as they are usually liberal, and was worried that most would reject any project that questioned statism.   To my immense pleasure, our dreams were answered when local San Diego cartoonist, Jorge Pacheco, responded to my craiglist ad.

I perused his online portfolio and quickly contacted him over the phone to discuss my project.  Jorge is a very pleasant man who was eager to give our idea a crack.  Once the money was wired to him, my inbox promptly contained the draft below.

I knew instantly that this was going to be a fantastic cover.  I was ecstatic that Jorge grasped the thoughts in my head and clearly knew how to translate those intangibles into something real.

“Make the skater look less ripped,” I believe, was our only suggestion for improvement.  Hey, us young people are the victims in this conflict, remember…

Most gratifying was how quickly Jorge produced results.  From the time I sent him money to when I received the first draft was one day.  From draft to complete color design was only another day!

Though the entire process of brainstorming and contacting numerous artists took valuable time, we knew that it had worked out perfectly.  Jorge left us with a powerful cover that is going to look great on bookshelves as well as promotional banners on the internet.

Book covers are extensions of the value of the words inside.  Our cover captures, we hope, our creativity and dedication to quality.

We’d have it no other way.