Is Obama Building A Federal Police Force?
By Tara Servatius
Less than two weeks ago, Sen. Rand Paul’s demanded to know whether the president believed he had a right to kill an American citizen on American soil with a drone, finally getting an answer that had to be dragged out Attorney General Eric Holder. An equally important, but still unasked question is whether the president intends to build a federal, drone-based “public safety” force to police local communities.
Somebody had better ask the president about this quickly, because it appears that his administration intends to use drones to actively usurp what were once local police and sheriff’s department functions.
Put it all together, and it sure looks like Obama is building the backbone for that national police force he wanted the first time he ran for office.
Worse yet, both Democrats and Republicans are now openly discussing a plan to put all the drones flown in America’s skies, including those owned and operated by local police departments, under the ultimate supervision of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, consolidating the country’s surveillance and law enforcement powers under one powerful federal police jurisdiction.
According to Wired.com, DHS is now experimenting with how its drones can be used in “first responder, law enforcement and border security scenarios.”
The DHS’s drones could also be used, Nextgov.com reported, “to support emergency and non-emergency incidents nationwide” and to give the department “situational awareness” in public safety matters or disasters, including forest fires. The department also plans to use its drones, and their attached cameras to surveil and police sporting events, political events and large public gatherings.
The problem with DHS’s plans is that many of the above functions used to be handled by local law enforcement without any help from the federal government.
DHS appears to be planning a vast surveillance network, and it is rapidly developing the technology to create it. Wired.com reports this about drone technology:
The Department of Homeland Security is interested in a camera package that can peek in on almost four square miles of (constitutionally protected) American territory for long, long stretches of time.
Homeland Security doesn’t have a particular system in mind. Right now, it’s just soliciting “industry feedback” on what a formal call for such a “Wide Area Surveillance System” might look like. But it’s the latest indication of how powerful military surveillance technology, developed to find foreign insurgents and terrorists, is migrating to the home front.
The Department of Homeland Security says it’s interested in a system that can see between five to 10 square kilometers - that’s between two and four square miles, roughly the size of Brooklyn, New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood - in its “persistent mode.” By “persistent,” it means the cameras should stare at the area in question for an unspecified number of hours to collect what the military likes to call “pattern of life” data - that is, what “normal” activity looks like for a given area.
In America, community policing has always been done at the local level. If a police force engaged in corruption, abused people, or got out of control, local voters could and likely would rapidly vote out the mayor or council that controlled it. You could get a badge number. You could file a report. You could call your local newspaper. This has always kept police departments responsive to the will and the needs of local communities - and firmly under their control.
But drone technology is now allowing Washington’s multitude of law enforcement agencies to begin to compete for police powers and police duties that have always fallen to local police departments.
Even more alarming, a subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security is currently studying a plan to put all the drones flown in America’s airways under direct supervision of DHS and the Department of Justice.
After a 2011 plot to use a drone to bomb the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol was thwarted by the FBI, Congress began exploring the idea of putting all drones - including those flown by local law enforcement agencies - under federal control to protect citizens against rogue drone operators with bad intentions.
The House Homeland Security committee, which oversees these matters, also became concerned last year that other federal government agencies were “borrowing DHS drones or procuring their own for scouting populated areas - without the department’s supervision,” Nextgov.com reported.
To deal with all of this, Committee on Homeland Security subcommittee Chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, says the committee will mandate that DHS, the Justice Department and the FAA coordinate to oversee all drones that fly within the country, but has said he prefers that the Obama administration do so without a requirement from Congress.
While the intentions here might not be totalitarian, the ultimate outcome could be, especially as more federal and local law enforcement agencies come to rely on drone technology and the federal government begins to police the interior in ways that were unthinkable just 15 years ago, before the Department of Homeland Security - and the use of drone technology — even existed.
On Washington’s present track with this, in a decade it could be hard to tell where your local police department ends and the federal government begins.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Karl Marx and the American Dream
March 15, 2013
By Jeremy Meister
You cannot use Karl Marx's ideas to help the middle class.
You can't do it.
Anyone who claims otherwise is stupid, ignorant, crazy, a liar, or some combination of the above. Even the laziest student can open a copy of the Communist Manifesto and read the first page, where Marx launches in to an attack on the middle class (the "bourgeoisie," as he calls them) -- an attack that continues to the end of his article. At no point does Marx say anything good about the middle class. Never does Marx propose a way to help the middle class. The whole Manifesto is a recipe for destroying the bourgeoisie and the economic system that creates and supports them (capitalism).
Basically, Marx advocated a return to the medieval lifestyle: a time when the barons and princes looked out for and took care of the happy serfs, who spent their days dancing around the maypole and praising their lords. Marx saw it as a time when everyone shared, everyone took pride in what he did, and everyone looked out for his neighbor.
But there was a problem in this paradise. It was the evil middle class who, unhappy and ungrateful in their place, rose up and destroyed the perfect social order.
The only problem with trying to return to the middle-age way of doing things is that Marx and his friends might not be at the top of the pecking order. Thankfully, Marx had a solution for this, too: "the people" would get together and, after voting, put Marx (and his friends) in charge. After all, someone has to lead these unwashed idiots. There would be only one vote: the one where Marx is elected king. After that, everything would be said to be the "will of the people."
This is why you'll never run into a follower of Marx. Communism/Socialism are completely followerless movements. If you ever talk to a Communist or a Marxist, you'll get the same story -- when the revolution comes, my friends and I will be in charge. You'll never hear a Marxist smile and say, "When the revolution comes I'm going to polish the leader's boots".
Marx wanted his system immediately -- preferably consisting of a violent destruction of the middle class, with blood running like rivers in the streets. But being a pragmatic man, he was willing to wait.
The true genius of the modern Marxists is that they have managed to convince a majority of middle-classers that Marx's ideas really can help the bourgeoisie. And it's hard to distinguish between those who actually believe that Socialism is a viable system and those opportunists who are simply planning to use such a system to their own ends.
How many of these modern Marxists are really this ignorant of their document? How often do we hear that "[this Marxist idea] needs to be done to help working families" or "[that Marxist idea] needs to be implemented to help the middle class"?
The Marxists espouse this nonsense because people believe it. Middle-classers have now become the ones voting for and supporting these ideas. Arrest records from the Marxist celebration of Occupy Wall Street show that most of those involved in that movement are from comfortable (dare we call them "bourgeoisie"?) backgrounds. But it goes deeper than that. In any given poll, middle-class people overwhelmingly like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, government subsidies of education and housing -- the list is endless, and the demands are never-ending.
But none of these programs is designed to help the middle class -- not any more than a drug dealer despite giving out medicines is interested in the health and well-being of his clientele. A little bit always leads to a demand for more. And after decades of calls for more, more, more, we get what we're looking at in 2013: the imminent total collapse of capitalist system.
When was the last time you heard some politician calling for any of the following?
1) A heavily progressive income tax. The more you make, the more they'll take. The rich are to pay their "fair share." We just had one of the biggest tax increases in American history starting January 1, but this hasn't stopped liberal politicians from demanding more hikes.
2) Seizing of inheritances. One of the most insidious taxes around is the death tax. Grieving families are forced to give half or more of their loved ones' property to the government. Interestingly enough, this idea is now working its way into gun control legislation. There are calls for "assault weapons" being forfeited at their owners' death.
3) Government takeover of the credit system. Already the government owns loans on a lot of houses. ObamaCare mandates that only the government can now give student loans. Meanwhile, the government is its own biggest debtor, swelling the amount we owe to levels never before seen in world history.
4) A takeover of the media. From "non Citizen" legislation, which would stop groups and businesses from speaking during elections to media "bailouts," which would come with government strings, or just outright nationalizations of media outlets, the government has big ideas for a "transformation" of the meaning of "free speech."
5) Overhaul of transportation. How often do we hear the phrase "shovel-ready jobs" or "roads and bridges"? They are pushing a train from Las Vegas to LA and another train that will run down the California coast. Transportation projects are a popular subject, even as the government coffers shrink and the costs of such projects explode.
6) Regulations of industry, especially in an environmental sense. Obama has one of the most active and overbearing EPAs since that agency was founded.
7) Expansion of education. Everyone shall go to school -- kindergarten through college -- and it will all be paid for by the government.
8) Government ownership of business. We've already watched the government gobble up the banks and auto-makers. Now we're watching them take over the medical system. Gun companies are probably on the horizon as well.
How many of these ideas sound familiar? Every single one of them is laid out in the Communist Manifesto as a way to destroy the middle class. Every single one. Forget good-sounding talk about "fair shares" and making the evil rich pay. They're coming after you, Mr. and Mrs. American.
Marx gave those ideas above their own bullet points in the Manifesto, but he had other ideas. Would you like to hear some of those?
1) Abolition of borders. The lower class (the "proletariat," as Marx called them) need to be free to move to other nations -- the better to corrupt the vote in those places.
2) A takeover of education. Not just through government ownership, but through like-minded Communists and Socialists populating the educators and lecturing students about the goodness of Marxism. The results have made a profound difference in our culture.
Every single time these ideas are implemented, the middle class takes more damage, which in turn leads to the bourgeoisie Marxists calling for more Marxism -- and the little merry-go-round keeps spinning in the halls of our government.
All of this is culminating exactly as Marx envisioned: a healthy, prosperous ruling elite lording it over a rapidly growing population of serfs. This hasn't been lost on the people paying attention: California is becoming a feudal society. There are stories leaking out that the same thing is happening in other liberal Marxist enclaves like New York and Washington, D.C.
This is a huge problem for our government, our system, our culture, and our society -- namely because the United States is a middle-class dream. The Founding Fathers were all from the "bourgeoisie" who rebelled because the government in England didn't feel that it had to respond to the concerns of peasants and underlings.
The idea that someone can start with nothing and, using hard work, creativity, and ingenuity, raise himself to a higher level is the American Dream. To own one's own house, own one's own car, to start a business, to work where one chooses, to take risks and reap the rewards of those risks -- that's the American Dream. It's why immigrants used to sacrifice everything to come here: the idea that one's birth wouldn't dictate his entire life and how far he could go. People are still willing to risk their lives for this. People are not locked into a caste system in America.
And all of that is anathema to the Marxist vision. Even Marx himself admits this:
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages. (The Communist Manifesto)
There is a small bright spot, however. Right now, we're still mostly a middle-class society. In a system where the vote is everything, there is still a chance to stop all of this destruction. But the first thing we as a society have to do is start being honest with ourselves. We cannot use Marx's ideas to obtain the American Dream.
The first step to fixing a problem is to admit that you have one.
By Jeremy Meister
You cannot use Karl Marx's ideas to help the middle class.
You can't do it.
Anyone who claims otherwise is stupid, ignorant, crazy, a liar, or some combination of the above. Even the laziest student can open a copy of the Communist Manifesto and read the first page, where Marx launches in to an attack on the middle class (the "bourgeoisie," as he calls them) -- an attack that continues to the end of his article. At no point does Marx say anything good about the middle class. Never does Marx propose a way to help the middle class. The whole Manifesto is a recipe for destroying the bourgeoisie and the economic system that creates and supports them (capitalism).
Basically, Marx advocated a return to the medieval lifestyle: a time when the barons and princes looked out for and took care of the happy serfs, who spent their days dancing around the maypole and praising their lords. Marx saw it as a time when everyone shared, everyone took pride in what he did, and everyone looked out for his neighbor.
But there was a problem in this paradise. It was the evil middle class who, unhappy and ungrateful in their place, rose up and destroyed the perfect social order.
The only problem with trying to return to the middle-age way of doing things is that Marx and his friends might not be at the top of the pecking order. Thankfully, Marx had a solution for this, too: "the people" would get together and, after voting, put Marx (and his friends) in charge. After all, someone has to lead these unwashed idiots. There would be only one vote: the one where Marx is elected king. After that, everything would be said to be the "will of the people."
This is why you'll never run into a follower of Marx. Communism/Socialism are completely followerless movements. If you ever talk to a Communist or a Marxist, you'll get the same story -- when the revolution comes, my friends and I will be in charge. You'll never hear a Marxist smile and say, "When the revolution comes I'm going to polish the leader's boots".
Marx wanted his system immediately -- preferably consisting of a violent destruction of the middle class, with blood running like rivers in the streets. But being a pragmatic man, he was willing to wait.
The true genius of the modern Marxists is that they have managed to convince a majority of middle-classers that Marx's ideas really can help the bourgeoisie. And it's hard to distinguish between those who actually believe that Socialism is a viable system and those opportunists who are simply planning to use such a system to their own ends.
How many of these modern Marxists are really this ignorant of their document? How often do we hear that "[this Marxist idea] needs to be done to help working families" or "[that Marxist idea] needs to be implemented to help the middle class"?
The Marxists espouse this nonsense because people believe it. Middle-classers have now become the ones voting for and supporting these ideas. Arrest records from the Marxist celebration of Occupy Wall Street show that most of those involved in that movement are from comfortable (dare we call them "bourgeoisie"?) backgrounds. But it goes deeper than that. In any given poll, middle-class people overwhelmingly like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, government subsidies of education and housing -- the list is endless, and the demands are never-ending.
But none of these programs is designed to help the middle class -- not any more than a drug dealer despite giving out medicines is interested in the health and well-being of his clientele. A little bit always leads to a demand for more. And after decades of calls for more, more, more, we get what we're looking at in 2013: the imminent total collapse of capitalist system.
When was the last time you heard some politician calling for any of the following?
1) A heavily progressive income tax. The more you make, the more they'll take. The rich are to pay their "fair share." We just had one of the biggest tax increases in American history starting January 1, but this hasn't stopped liberal politicians from demanding more hikes.
2) Seizing of inheritances. One of the most insidious taxes around is the death tax. Grieving families are forced to give half or more of their loved ones' property to the government. Interestingly enough, this idea is now working its way into gun control legislation. There are calls for "assault weapons" being forfeited at their owners' death.
3) Government takeover of the credit system. Already the government owns loans on a lot of houses. ObamaCare mandates that only the government can now give student loans. Meanwhile, the government is its own biggest debtor, swelling the amount we owe to levels never before seen in world history.
4) A takeover of the media. From "non Citizen" legislation, which would stop groups and businesses from speaking during elections to media "bailouts," which would come with government strings, or just outright nationalizations of media outlets, the government has big ideas for a "transformation" of the meaning of "free speech."
5) Overhaul of transportation. How often do we hear the phrase "shovel-ready jobs" or "roads and bridges"? They are pushing a train from Las Vegas to LA and another train that will run down the California coast. Transportation projects are a popular subject, even as the government coffers shrink and the costs of such projects explode.
6) Regulations of industry, especially in an environmental sense. Obama has one of the most active and overbearing EPAs since that agency was founded.
7) Expansion of education. Everyone shall go to school -- kindergarten through college -- and it will all be paid for by the government.
8) Government ownership of business. We've already watched the government gobble up the banks and auto-makers. Now we're watching them take over the medical system. Gun companies are probably on the horizon as well.
How many of these ideas sound familiar? Every single one of them is laid out in the Communist Manifesto as a way to destroy the middle class. Every single one. Forget good-sounding talk about "fair shares" and making the evil rich pay. They're coming after you, Mr. and Mrs. American.
Marx gave those ideas above their own bullet points in the Manifesto, but he had other ideas. Would you like to hear some of those?
1) Abolition of borders. The lower class (the "proletariat," as Marx called them) need to be free to move to other nations -- the better to corrupt the vote in those places.
2) A takeover of education. Not just through government ownership, but through like-minded Communists and Socialists populating the educators and lecturing students about the goodness of Marxism. The results have made a profound difference in our culture.
Every single time these ideas are implemented, the middle class takes more damage, which in turn leads to the bourgeoisie Marxists calling for more Marxism -- and the little merry-go-round keeps spinning in the halls of our government.
All of this is culminating exactly as Marx envisioned: a healthy, prosperous ruling elite lording it over a rapidly growing population of serfs. This hasn't been lost on the people paying attention: California is becoming a feudal society. There are stories leaking out that the same thing is happening in other liberal Marxist enclaves like New York and Washington, D.C.
This is a huge problem for our government, our system, our culture, and our society -- namely because the United States is a middle-class dream. The Founding Fathers were all from the "bourgeoisie" who rebelled because the government in England didn't feel that it had to respond to the concerns of peasants and underlings.
The idea that someone can start with nothing and, using hard work, creativity, and ingenuity, raise himself to a higher level is the American Dream. To own one's own house, own one's own car, to start a business, to work where one chooses, to take risks and reap the rewards of those risks -- that's the American Dream. It's why immigrants used to sacrifice everything to come here: the idea that one's birth wouldn't dictate his entire life and how far he could go. People are still willing to risk their lives for this. People are not locked into a caste system in America.
And all of that is anathema to the Marxist vision. Even Marx himself admits this:
Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages. (The Communist Manifesto)
There is a small bright spot, however. Right now, we're still mostly a middle-class society. In a system where the vote is everything, there is still a chance to stop all of this destruction. But the first thing we as a society have to do is start being honest with ourselves. We cannot use Marx's ideas to obtain the American Dream.
The first step to fixing a problem is to admit that you have one.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Obama Admin Prepares To Disarm America
March 2, 2013 by Kris Zane 68
Barack Obama is a Marxist. And like all good Marxists, he wants to disarm the public. It's not like it hasn't been done before. In October 1918, the Communist government "ordered citizens to surrender all firearms, ammunition…having first mandated registration of all weapons six months earlier."
The Nazis followed the same pattern.
The Nazi Weapons Law of November 11, 1938 prohibited Jews from "acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons."
Both the Nazis and Communist Party members were exempt from these guns bans.
Now it's our federal government that is exempt from the laws they place on the public they are mandated to serve.
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, Obama and his Marxist minions began wringing their hands decrying those evil assault weapons, while quietly ordering 7000 AR-15s for the Department of Homeland Security. In order to exempt themselves from the laws they want to foist on the American people, the AR-15s are being referred to as "personal defense weapons."
But what is really shocking is the number of bullets the federal government is stockpiling.
The Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled a staggering amount of ammunition—two billion rounds, most of it the hollow point, armor-piercing variety, enough to kill every American man, woman, and child five times.
The DHS claims all these bullets are for "training purposes."
And what are they using for targets?
The DHS has been stockpiling "non-traditional" gun targets, portraying everyday Americans defending themselves, even purchasing targets of a small child with a handgun.
The ATF, with fond memories of the Ruby Ridge massacre, is also getting in the act with a target depicting a woman protecting her unborn child.
But what is good for the government apparently is not good for the public.
The Veterans Administration is moving to disarm so-called "incompetent" veterans, sending out thousands of letters with the following:
A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition. If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both…
Of course, the letter leaves open as to what "incompetency" entails.
Military veterans traditionally are liberty-loving conservatives. This "incompetency" may be the government's view that veterans have a predilection for becoming domestic terrorists.
A little known sub-department within the DHS called the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism—START, for short— published "Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States." Who should we be worried about, per START? Those who are "reverent of individual liberty." Those who are "suspicious of centralized federal authority." Those who believe there is a "grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty."
Sounds like the basis for the Obama administration to take out veterans, Tea Party members, and anyone who holds conservative values. Anyone who believes the Constitution of the United States is the highest law in the land.
Everyday conservative Americans are becoming Public Enemy Number One of the Obama Administration.
And enemies need to be disarmed.
The Trojan Horse of the Obama administration's gun grab, however, is the so-called "universal background check." The universal background check is nothing more than a national gun registry. What do we know about national gun registries throughout history?
Both the Communists and Nazis used the ruse of a national gun registry as a precursor to gun confiscation.
And that is exactly what is coming.
The NRA uncovered a secret DOJ memo calling for a national gun registration leading to confiscation.
Then the only ones who will have guns will be Obama and his rogue government thugs.
Hold on to your guns, America.
Barack Obama is a Marxist. And like all good Marxists, he wants to disarm the public. It's not like it hasn't been done before. In October 1918, the Communist government "ordered citizens to surrender all firearms, ammunition…having first mandated registration of all weapons six months earlier."
The Nazis followed the same pattern.
The Nazi Weapons Law of November 11, 1938 prohibited Jews from "acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons."
Both the Nazis and Communist Party members were exempt from these guns bans.
Now it's our federal government that is exempt from the laws they place on the public they are mandated to serve.
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, Obama and his Marxist minions began wringing their hands decrying those evil assault weapons, while quietly ordering 7000 AR-15s for the Department of Homeland Security. In order to exempt themselves from the laws they want to foist on the American people, the AR-15s are being referred to as "personal defense weapons."
But what is really shocking is the number of bullets the federal government is stockpiling.
The Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled a staggering amount of ammunition—two billion rounds, most of it the hollow point, armor-piercing variety, enough to kill every American man, woman, and child five times.
The DHS claims all these bullets are for "training purposes."
And what are they using for targets?
The DHS has been stockpiling "non-traditional" gun targets, portraying everyday Americans defending themselves, even purchasing targets of a small child with a handgun.
The ATF, with fond memories of the Ruby Ridge massacre, is also getting in the act with a target depicting a woman protecting her unborn child.
But what is good for the government apparently is not good for the public.
The Veterans Administration is moving to disarm so-called "incompetent" veterans, sending out thousands of letters with the following:
A determination of incompetency will prohibit you from purchasing, possessing, receiving, or transporting a firearm or ammunition. If you knowingly violate any of these prohibitions, you may be fined, imprisoned, or both…
Of course, the letter leaves open as to what "incompetency" entails.
Military veterans traditionally are liberty-loving conservatives. This "incompetency" may be the government's view that veterans have a predilection for becoming domestic terrorists.
A little known sub-department within the DHS called the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism—START, for short— published "Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States." Who should we be worried about, per START? Those who are "reverent of individual liberty." Those who are "suspicious of centralized federal authority." Those who believe there is a "grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty."
Sounds like the basis for the Obama administration to take out veterans, Tea Party members, and anyone who holds conservative values. Anyone who believes the Constitution of the United States is the highest law in the land.
Everyday conservative Americans are becoming Public Enemy Number One of the Obama Administration.
And enemies need to be disarmed.
The Trojan Horse of the Obama administration's gun grab, however, is the so-called "universal background check." The universal background check is nothing more than a national gun registry. What do we know about national gun registries throughout history?
Both the Communists and Nazis used the ruse of a national gun registry as a precursor to gun confiscation.
And that is exactly what is coming.
The NRA uncovered a secret DOJ memo calling for a national gun registration leading to confiscation.
Then the only ones who will have guns will be Obama and his rogue government thugs.
Hold on to your guns, America.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
With Venezuelan Food Shortages, Some Blame Price Controls
If you want to see a modern day example of why Obama’s policies and us against them politics won’t work, please read this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/world/americas/venezuela-faces-shortages-in-grocery-staples.html
Friday, April 20, 2012
What has happened to the “Grand Experiment”?
"Our nation was founded as an experiment in human liberty. Its institutions reflect the belief of our founders that men had their origin and destiny in God"
- John Foster Dulles
The United States of America has traditionally been called "The Grand Experiment". It is the first country that was formed "by the people, for the people". Its foundation is one of a democratic republic and of liberty.
The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, gave the people power as the rulers of the government, instead of as is traditional, where governments rule the people. The founding fathers warned over and over that this form of government would always be under attack, that it would be subject to change if the people were not vigilant. The more people rely on the government the more they flirt with the loss of this grand experiment.
Unfortunately, the last hundred years or so have been a slow, deliberate march towards the very powerful, very centralized government our founders feared the most. A march that has led us away from their dreams, beliefs, and convictions, to the over regulated, controlled society we now live in. We have gone from the marvel of the world to just another big government democracy. We no longer even truly function as a republic. To get here we have had to ignore and override much of what our Constitution and Bill of Rights stands for.
The Federal Government and its bureaucracy now has its fingers in every aspect of our lives. There is nothing we can do in this country, nowhere we can go, that our lives are not regulated by the government. From the water we drink, to what we wear, what we drive, what we eat, what type of light bulbs we can use, what we can and can't do with the land we own, on and on. Even our thoughts are beginning to be regulated through hate crime laws and such. The Federal Government has its fingers everywhere.
The question I have is where do we go from here? Do we give up? Just accept what now seems inevitable? Or do we begin to fight back? Do we use the same, thought out, purposeful strategy that has been used against us? Is it even possible to slowly but surely return the United States to its roots? Or have we truly already lost? I believe we can still take this country back, but it is going to take a lot more than winning one election. It is going to take educated, informed decisions, a purposeful strategy, people who understand the stakes and are willing to act. It is also going to take time.
To start, we need a President, Senate and House who are willing to discuss and tackle the challenges facing our country. Leaders, who will stop playing politics, catering to special interest groups, and putting their own power and careers ahead of the country, who understand their Constitutional roles and responsibilities. Senators and Congressmen in our country were intended to be citizen legislators. They were supposed to go home and spend a good part of the year with their constituents so that they were in touch with what is going on in the various areas of the country. What they have become, in effect, is a ruling class, sitting above the lives of the "common folk". Content to make rules, laws, and regulations that both keep them in power and subjugate those whose rights and liberties they are supposed to protect.
These same lawmakers have also created huge government bureaucracies, bureaucracies that have broad powers to regulate and control our society. These bureaucracies have a life of their own; they expand and intrude on our lives without legislation or citizen oversight. Much of this is done under the guise of "protecting us", but what they in fact do is rob us of our liberties and make us slaves of the government.
In addition, we need to begin addressing our judicial system and in particular the Supreme Court. It is critical that Supreme Court Justices be appointed who will put aside the "legal precedents" and judicial activism that has occurred over the past one hundred years or more. They need to begin returning our country to our real constitutional roots. We need justices who will give back to individuals and to the States the power invested in them by our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and by our founders.
On top of all this, and integrally related to it, is our national debt. America's debt is greater than that of the entire Eurozone's (and U.K.'s) combined. In just the last 39 months, under Barack Obama, the federal government's debt has increased by over five trillion dollars! It is a disaster looming on the horizon that will cripple our nation if we do not make significant changes now. Yet for the most part, our career politicians in Washington are playing political games with it, they are refusing to even begin dealing with the issue. When some legislators are willing to sound the alarm, are willing to step forward and say this has to change, they are lied about, ridiculed, called uncaring, radical, and rigid. We need to get this government under control. We need to stop playing political games and one-upmanship. We need leaders who are willing to get our finances in order.
So where do we really begin? Because I am not interested in another pretty face or witty line, I am not interested in politicians who show up on late night TV shows as if they were Hollywood celebrities, I am not interested in special interests and pet projects, I am not interested in political games or "Super Pack" advertising, I am not interested in lies, exaggerations and caricatures, I am not interested in us against them, poor against rich, black against white, young against old. We are Americans and we are in very serious times. We need serious leaders. We need people, citizens, who understand America, citizens who are willing to lead, who will stand up and tell us the truth and then be willing to act.
All of this sounds over whelming, almost undoable, but there is one glimmer of hope; the American people. With all the changes that have taken place in our great nation there is one thing that has not changed; the power we have as citizens to change our government. If the people who are in power now cannot, or will not, change the direction of our government, than we the people of the United States need to change them.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Leveling the Playing Field
"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?
Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
The danger of an ever more powerful centralized government, “leveling the playing field” and looking out for the “needs” of it citizens is that in the end while we are all “equal” we are also all slaves to that government.
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