The State of the Union speech the other night was disturbing, to say the least. Consider all that has happened over the last year. It became very apparent early on in President Obama’s term that many of his proposals were anathema to a large segment of the population. Patriots took to the streets and the "Tea Party" movement was born. Still, he pushed on with the spending, the Cap and Trade bill and Health Care Reform. Members of congress were read the riot act during town hall meetings over the summer. Yet opposition to these final blows against our liberty and economic sanity was derided or ignored. Hundreds of thousands marched on Washington in the fall and the president’s party started losing elections. None of it mattered. He and the congressional leadership were determined to push through their agenda no matter what.
Wednesday night it became obvious that there will be no course correction. There will be no "moving to the center" or attempts at "triangulation". To the president and his progressive/Marxist cohorts, the voices of protest may well have never been raised. It has become clear that if we believed that protests, marches or even elections were going to get the attention of this administration, we were wrong. They are dead set on moving ahead. The government takeover of health care is obviously unconstitutional, will destroy innovation, ration care and be an economic disaster. It doesn’t matter because logic, reason or law don’t deter these people. Cap and Trade, again, unconstitutional regulation, will impoverish the average American, ruin businesses and kill our competitive advantage in the world. The president and his congressional cronies don’t care. Full speed ahead. And of course, there’s the spending. Trillions and trillions of dollars of it. He proposed a freeze. Its a trick, part of the game. Last year and this he will increase the spending he proposes to freeze by twenty to fifty percent and then freeze it at that level. Is that a reduction in government spending? Is it going to reduce the burden placed on our children and grandchildren? And the very thing that is driving our headlong rush into economic oblivion, welfare spending, is exempt! This fixes nothing. In fact, it makes it worse because his "spending freeze" locks in those exorbitant spending levels for three years! These three items, Health Care Reform, Cap and Trade and out of control spending, are the things we have protested most loudly about. This is, of course, not to ignore the other targets of his petulance like the banking industry, the energy industry, insurance companies, and even TV pundits. We have tried to argue our point, we have tried to reason. We have been ignored and, based on the presidents words, will continue to be ignored. They are determined to continue marching us along the path to socialism and totalitarianism whether it is constitutional, legal, moral or right. Like FDR, they are using this present economic downturn, a "crisis" they created, to push through this agenda. If they have to destroy the very foundations of this country in liberty and capitalism to do it, they have declared themselves more than willing.
Beyond the bold retrenchment of his positions, which was to be expected from a Marxist ideologue, there were other parts of the speech that revealed one of two things about the president. One possibility is that he is willing to say or do anything to continue pushing his agenda and he thinks we are too stupid to understand what he is doing or he doesn’t care what we think. To push a program designed to suppress liberty, obliterate economic freedom and reduce us to servitude can only be the work of a despot. The other possibility is he is so out of touch with reality as to be psychotic. No matter which one is true, we are in serious trouble.
First, there were parts of the speech that were simply farcical.
"..it is sowing further division among our citizens and further distrust in our government."
Since the days of FDR the Democrat party has carved up the American people into little groups, playing one group against another and cobbling a coalition of special interests together to ensure their election. Has not this president continually pitted Americans against one another? Blacks against whites, bankers against consumers, employers against employees, just to name a few. And why do we distrust the government? Because this president and most members of congress lie to us constantly.
"I know that all of us love this country."
There are a lot of us out here that doubt that because we believe his actions are meant to destroy it.
"All of us are committed to its defense....all of our men and women in uniform -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world – must know that they have our respect, our gratitude, and our full support"
Oh really? And how does he demonstrate these assertions? By treating terrorists better than citizens? By announcing pull out dates that allow our enemies to bide their time before they move? By attacking the work of our intelligence services and prosecuting soldiers who actually kill the enemy? By restricting military operations with absurd rules of engagement that endanger the lives of our brave men and women and give our enemies unwarranted advantages? By refusing to take any real action against countries that openly threaten us and are very close to acquiring the weapons that could do great harm to us all? By continuing a disastrous open border policy that allows our enemies free access to our heartland?
"...I supported the last administration’s efforts to create the financial rescue program. And when we took the program over, we made it more transparent and accountable."
Does anyone know where this money went?
"We are working with Muslim communities around the world to promote science, education and innovation."
What does this mean? Muslim countries are trying to turn the clock back to the seventh century, what is he talking about?
"For America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity."
Except here in the United States, apparently.
"...we are all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it; that if you adhere to our common values you should be treated no different than anyone else."
Tell that to the policeman in New Haven.
"Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, is just part of the game."
Perhaps Sarah Palin can comment on the actions of the Obama campaign in this area.
Then there are the parts of the speech that can only be described as psychotic.
"I’m also calling on Congress to continue down the path of earmark reform."
Are you kidding?! The bribery engaged in by his party under his leadership to achieve his socialist goals has been blatant and unprecedented. Do the bribes of the senators form Louisiana or Nebraska ring a bell? Do all the earmarks in the Stimulus bill stimulate a little recall?
"To close that credibility gap we must take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; and to give our people the government they deserve."
If these were the rantings of a nut in a padded room, they might be funny. His administration is populated with lobbyists even though he said he would not hire even one. His bills are written by lobbyists and then discussed behind closed doors. His party reconciles bills in secret, drops them on the congress in the middle of the night and pushes them through before anyone can even read them!
"That’s why – for the first time in history – my Administration posts our White House visitors online."
Only after FOX News fought for a freedom if information act request for months.
"The confirmation of well-qualified public servants should not be held hostage to the pet projects or grudges of a few individual Senators."
Has he forgotten how the senate of which he was a part held up hundreds of judges and other appointees during the Bush administration? The fact that during the Bush years the filibuster rule was applied to these judicial appointees for the first time? Is his memory really so short?
"One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt...By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion....we will still face the massive deficit we had when I took office...The problem is, that’s what we did for eight years..."
He continues to blame others for his problems to deflect criticism and dodge responsibility for his own failures.
Finally, there were other parts of the speech that were more than a bit frightening.
"Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission (bipartisan fiscal commission). So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward..."
So if he cannot get the congress to do what he wants, he will just do it through fiat. Isn’t that what dictators do?
"Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."
The Supreme Court finally getting some cahones and standing up for the people’s first amendment rights isn’t to his majesty’s liking? Weren’t the Clinton and Gore campaigns financed by China, a "foreign government"? Prhaps he’s afraid "special interests" other than his union buddies or ACORN might get to have a say? So he calls on the congress to correct it. If they don’t, can we expect another executive order?
"...if the Republican leadership is going to insist that sixty votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well."
So whose responsibility was it to govern before? His alone? Perhaps his and his czars. So the people whom he told six months ago to "sit down and shut up" are now supposed to partner with him? And how does this square with his assertion that the democrats still have a historic majority and now is the time to use it, not "run for the hills"?
Do you see what what has happened? Do you see what we have done? We have allowed this government to become so large, so powerful, so all pervasive over time and now we have turned it over to a bunch of Marxist psychopaths! Is there any way this ends well for any of us? A final quote from the State of the Union speech. "We don’t quit. I don’t quit." Please quit, Mr. President. Quit shoving your unconstitutional/Marxist/totalitarian/huge government program down our throats. Unfortunately, if he hasn’t listened yet, I don’t think he will. It is time to take a new and different tack in the face of this unprecedented and determined push for tyranny.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Fallacy of Majority Rule
The fight over some of the centerpiece issues of President Obama’s agenda has revolved, to a large part, around polls. The proponents of say, health care reform, cite polls that say a majority of Americans support their position. The opponents cite falling polls as an indication that their position has gained traction. Right now, polls show that support for the president and his agenda has fallen and his opponents rejoice. I would like to remind those opponents that roughly half of the American people are still supportive of our first Marxist president. That is not something to be happy about.
The real problem lies in the fact that the fight has become one of popularity and ultimately a fight like that is not one the sons and daughters of liberty are likely to win. Here is why. Popularity resides primarily in the realm of emotion. It can therefore be influenced by propaganda and outright bribery. If the people in power have the media at their disposal to dispense their propaganda and the treasury with which to bribe, they will eventually prevail. We are already very close to that critical mass whereby the majority of Americans do not pay income tax. Will not those who do not have a stake in the system continue to vote for what they see as “free stuff”? Do the propagandists not twist the polls themselves to convince people that their neighbors are supporting more intrusive government? If the criteria for what is right or wrong in government is polls, popularity and even elections, which it has become, our representative republic based on law and individual rights has been replaced by mob rule. The founders had a great fear of this happening and we can see today why those fears were justified.
“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong. In fact it is only reestablishing under another name and more specious form, force as the measure of right.” James Madison
Perhaps you have noticed that those in power often tout the virtues of our “democracy” when using the polls to support their point. A democracy is a system of government in which each individual has one vote and the law of the land is whatever the majority want. This is not the principle upon which our government is based not what the founders intended. In fact, they had a rather dim view of democracy,
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Benjamin Franklin
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” James Madison
Why has this been the case? Because once the people accept the idea that anything that is good for the majority is good for all they are removed from the anchor of eternal principles and become subject to manipulation and propaganda. Those in power are always ready to jump on an opportunity. As Rahm Emmanuel said, “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Franklin Roosevelt used the crisis of the recession to increase federal power exponentially. Even though it was unprecedented and unconstitutional, the majority of Americans believed that in their present circumstances, it was acceptable to disregard the constitution and the principle of limited government. Once that precedent had been set, government has exploited that attitude. What the Democratic party began doing under FDR and has continued to do to the present day is divide Americans into groups, promising (bribing) each group with some part of the federal pie and bringing in enough groups to develop a majority. That strategy has resulted in the worst of both worlds. We end up with the tyranny of the minority within the majority. Each special interest group gets what it wants regardless of its cost to the treasury and liberty of others. As we see today, such an approach is unsustainable. It bankrupts us economically and morally. Economically, the plethora of special interest programs has created an unsustainable Federal debt and its taxes crush the very spirit of industriousness that made any of it possible. Morally, because it makes beggars and dependents out of too many Americans and creates resentment among the reminder. It is a recipe for disaster and one that may come upon us sooner rather than later.
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself” Thomas Paine
Both the founders quoted stated that the end of democracies was violent. This is perhaps the most insidious feature of all. Once we have removed the foundation of immutable law and God-given rights and replaced it with the idea that the majority decides what rights the citizens should have, it is easy to remove the rights of some in the minority. A congressman recently made the statement that the government was granting the “right” to heath care. Government does not have the power to grant rights nor does it have the power to take them away. If, however, the majority believe that it does, and our government education system is designed to reinforce that fallacy, the abridgement of individual rights begins. It has already. Our rights to our property and the fruits of our labor have been gone for decades. Our right to self defense is constantly under attack. Our right to free speech, recent supreme court ruling excepted, is under assault. Our right to freedom of religious expression has been pared down over the years. Others could also be mentioned but the point has been made.
“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?” Thomas Jefferson
The end of all this is the fact that once the government has the power to ignore the rights of some, it has the power to ignore the rights of all. Adolf Hitler took the reigns of power legally in Germany through elections, elections marred by fraud and intimidation. He quickly began ignoring the rights of the “undesirables” . It did not take long until he used a fabricated crisis to accelerate his consolidation of power and remove rights for all. Yet the majority of Germans went along with his plan, there was little opposition, none of it very organized. And it all happened very quickly, in the space of five years.
“What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals” Thomas Jefferson
Could it happen here? Oh yeah. We are ripe for such a “legal” takeover. President Obama is already setting up his “shadow government” of czars and has shown his contempt for the constitution, and even the will of the people. The congress of the representatives of the people has become more and more irrelevant as the power of the bureaucracy has asserted itself. The majority of Americans do not understand the value of their rights and are willing to trade them for a crust of bread. The trend of all governments is the consolidation of power and the more of that power that has been consolidated, the more dear a price that must be paid for the reestablishment of liberty.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Benjamin Franklin
The sons and daughters of liberty must learn to change the rules of the game. On the field of propaganda and bribery, the deck is staked against us and the rules are based on false assumptions. We must have the courage to change the rules and the arguement but we must be consistent. We cannot look at the present system and just convince our neighbors to “stop here”, and accept our current degree of servitude. If that is the case, the power remains in the hands of the government and it will flex its muscles once again in the near future. What we must do is convince our neighbors that the worth of their liberty far exceeds the largess they may receive from the government persecuting their fellows. That the freedom to pursue their dream unhindered by the constricting rules and regulations of a government safety net is worth the risk and is what made this country great. That the value of the individual exercising the rights they have been endowed with by their Creator far surpasses the need of the collective to restrict those rights. That is a fight that can be won because deep in the nature of every human being is the understanding that their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness belong to them and no other person or government, and the restriction of those rights is wrong. In America that understanding is much closer to the surface than in many other places and it is waiting to be revealed once more.
“Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. That is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because (it is) necessary for his own sustenance.” Thomas Jefferson
The real problem lies in the fact that the fight has become one of popularity and ultimately a fight like that is not one the sons and daughters of liberty are likely to win. Here is why. Popularity resides primarily in the realm of emotion. It can therefore be influenced by propaganda and outright bribery. If the people in power have the media at their disposal to dispense their propaganda and the treasury with which to bribe, they will eventually prevail. We are already very close to that critical mass whereby the majority of Americans do not pay income tax. Will not those who do not have a stake in the system continue to vote for what they see as “free stuff”? Do the propagandists not twist the polls themselves to convince people that their neighbors are supporting more intrusive government? If the criteria for what is right or wrong in government is polls, popularity and even elections, which it has become, our representative republic based on law and individual rights has been replaced by mob rule. The founders had a great fear of this happening and we can see today why those fears were justified.
“There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong. In fact it is only reestablishing under another name and more specious form, force as the measure of right.” James Madison
Perhaps you have noticed that those in power often tout the virtues of our “democracy” when using the polls to support their point. A democracy is a system of government in which each individual has one vote and the law of the land is whatever the majority want. This is not the principle upon which our government is based not what the founders intended. In fact, they had a rather dim view of democracy,
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Benjamin Franklin
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” James Madison
Why has this been the case? Because once the people accept the idea that anything that is good for the majority is good for all they are removed from the anchor of eternal principles and become subject to manipulation and propaganda. Those in power are always ready to jump on an opportunity. As Rahm Emmanuel said, “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Franklin Roosevelt used the crisis of the recession to increase federal power exponentially. Even though it was unprecedented and unconstitutional, the majority of Americans believed that in their present circumstances, it was acceptable to disregard the constitution and the principle of limited government. Once that precedent had been set, government has exploited that attitude. What the Democratic party began doing under FDR and has continued to do to the present day is divide Americans into groups, promising (bribing) each group with some part of the federal pie and bringing in enough groups to develop a majority. That strategy has resulted in the worst of both worlds. We end up with the tyranny of the minority within the majority. Each special interest group gets what it wants regardless of its cost to the treasury and liberty of others. As we see today, such an approach is unsustainable. It bankrupts us economically and morally. Economically, the plethora of special interest programs has created an unsustainable Federal debt and its taxes crush the very spirit of industriousness that made any of it possible. Morally, because it makes beggars and dependents out of too many Americans and creates resentment among the reminder. It is a recipe for disaster and one that may come upon us sooner rather than later.
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself” Thomas Paine
Both the founders quoted stated that the end of democracies was violent. This is perhaps the most insidious feature of all. Once we have removed the foundation of immutable law and God-given rights and replaced it with the idea that the majority decides what rights the citizens should have, it is easy to remove the rights of some in the minority. A congressman recently made the statement that the government was granting the “right” to heath care. Government does not have the power to grant rights nor does it have the power to take them away. If, however, the majority believe that it does, and our government education system is designed to reinforce that fallacy, the abridgement of individual rights begins. It has already. Our rights to our property and the fruits of our labor have been gone for decades. Our right to self defense is constantly under attack. Our right to free speech, recent supreme court ruling excepted, is under assault. Our right to freedom of religious expression has been pared down over the years. Others could also be mentioned but the point has been made.
“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?” Thomas Jefferson
The end of all this is the fact that once the government has the power to ignore the rights of some, it has the power to ignore the rights of all. Adolf Hitler took the reigns of power legally in Germany through elections, elections marred by fraud and intimidation. He quickly began ignoring the rights of the “undesirables” . It did not take long until he used a fabricated crisis to accelerate his consolidation of power and remove rights for all. Yet the majority of Germans went along with his plan, there was little opposition, none of it very organized. And it all happened very quickly, in the space of five years.
“What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals” Thomas Jefferson
Could it happen here? Oh yeah. We are ripe for such a “legal” takeover. President Obama is already setting up his “shadow government” of czars and has shown his contempt for the constitution, and even the will of the people. The congress of the representatives of the people has become more and more irrelevant as the power of the bureaucracy has asserted itself. The majority of Americans do not understand the value of their rights and are willing to trade them for a crust of bread. The trend of all governments is the consolidation of power and the more of that power that has been consolidated, the more dear a price that must be paid for the reestablishment of liberty.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Benjamin Franklin
The sons and daughters of liberty must learn to change the rules of the game. On the field of propaganda and bribery, the deck is staked against us and the rules are based on false assumptions. We must have the courage to change the rules and the arguement but we must be consistent. We cannot look at the present system and just convince our neighbors to “stop here”, and accept our current degree of servitude. If that is the case, the power remains in the hands of the government and it will flex its muscles once again in the near future. What we must do is convince our neighbors that the worth of their liberty far exceeds the largess they may receive from the government persecuting their fellows. That the freedom to pursue their dream unhindered by the constricting rules and regulations of a government safety net is worth the risk and is what made this country great. That the value of the individual exercising the rights they have been endowed with by their Creator far surpasses the need of the collective to restrict those rights. That is a fight that can be won because deep in the nature of every human being is the understanding that their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness belong to them and no other person or government, and the restriction of those rights is wrong. In America that understanding is much closer to the surface than in many other places and it is waiting to be revealed once more.
“Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. That is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because (it is) necessary for his own sustenance.” Thomas Jefferson
Friday, January 22, 2010
Amerika-Love It Or Leave It
The rapid pace of change in the United States and our unprecedented access to information and opinion about the changes taking place has prompted many people to ask, “What has happened to the America I knew?” As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, there are few left who remember the America that existed before the wholesale embrace of socialism initiated by Franklin Roosevelt. There are some who know who Norman Rockwell was and still dream of that America. More people are beginning to understand the principles upon which this great country was founded and comprehend the distance we have strayed. Most, however, with an attention span abbreviated by the media, a lack of understanding of history and the ability to think deeply reinforced by a woefully inadequate government education system and the complacency engendered by the inherited wealth of our nation, continue to walk around in a stupor, unaware of the destructive path upon which we have embarked. The chains have been added so slowly and with such slick advertising that few are aware of how heavy they have become.
“Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty”
Thomas Jefferson
Things have changed, however. Our bondage no longer takes place in secret and the speed and arrogant compulsion by which our government is trying to secure the last of our chains has made many finally sit up and take notice. The response has been one of protests, protests that are becoming more organized and widespread. The government leaders trying to lock these last chains in place are doing their best to ignore and discredit the dissidents and convince the remainder that the chains are really for their own good. Who will win? Over the short term, the protesters might. They may win some elections or change a wavering politician’s mind. The long term, however, is in the hands of the government and it is not about to relinquish one scrap of its power. At the end of the Reagan Revolution, government was bigger. Since the Contract With America, it has grown exponentially. What some have finally realized is that both parties want the power that comes with bigger and more intrusive government. One party may blatantly admit it, as Democrat Barny Frank did recently. However, the proof is in their actions, not their words, and the actions of Washington, no mater which party has been in charge, demonstrate their desire to reduce us to servitude.
“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties or his possessions.”
James Madison
What if we don’t want to live as slaves? What if we don’t want the government telling us what we can eat, how cold or hot our home is, what car we can drive, where to put our retirement money, how to meet our health needs, how to educate our children....the list could go on. Once upon a time when the “Hate America Crowd” was on the outside looking in, a red-blooded American could say, “America, love it or leave it!” Now that same “hate America crowd” has molded our government and the country into their own Marxist image and they say to us “Amerika, love it or leave it!” What are we to do? We are conflicted because we know and believe in ideals and values we know are, or have been, American ideals and we believe that our government was instituted to reflect those ideals. In our form of government we think that the representatives we send will protect and enhance our values and ensure the continuity of all that has made this country great. In our minds, the government, the land and the ideals are inseparable. It is a fallacy that has led us to accept our descent into servitude with little protest and will prohibit us from mentally considering avenues of self-preservation not sanctioned by the government. We erroneously believe that we can work within our system to bring about major changes and roll back the socialism we have embraced. The system is not ours anymore, it has not been for some time. The system is run by those in power for the perpetuation of that power. Elections are controlled by the two parties and any candidate that wants to rise to the national, and to a large degree, the state, level, have to play the game. Sure, there are a few exceptions, there are a few “Mr. Smiths” in politics but most of them play the game and perpetuate their power. The way money is raised, the way voting districts are drawn, the way the parties use PACs and the ability of incumbents to use media at taxpayer expense all ensure the historical ninety-plus percent reelection rate of even the most dimwitted and outrageous politicians.
“The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.”
“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness by positively uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is patron, the last a punisher.”
Thomas Paine
Even if we could elect a few good men and women, most of government is out of their hands anyway. Once upon a time we had a government that had three coequal branches that were all subject to “We the People”. For a time those branches contested for supremacy. Early on it was the executive under President Jackson which could ignore the supreme court and Lincoln’s tyrannical activities during the civil war. In the twentieth century the courts reasserted themselves and for years citizens bemoaned “legislation from the bench”. Now, the power resides in the vast bureaucracy created by the congress and loosely directed from the executive branch. For example, because the congress is not moving quickly enough to pass cap and trade legislation, the Environmental Protection Agency has stated it will implement a similar program with no input form the people’s representatives necessary. If the courts do not believe so called “Net Neutrality” i.e. government control of the Internet, is constitutional, the Federal Communication Commission will declare it a public utility and regulate it anyway. The myriad of government agencies, all of which appear to have eternal life as Reagan said, pump out tens of thousands of pages of rules and regulations we are expected to know and obey on pain of fine or imprisonment. Again, no input from the people’s representatives necessary. We have gone from a government with three equal branches under the direction and authority of “we the people” to a government run from the top down with the executive bureaucracy on top and “we the people” at the bottom. Government no longer exists to serve us-we exist to provide our treasure and toil to the government. It is a situation that has followed a logical and historical progression that has never been reversed. Power, once attained, is never relinquished voluntarily by the government that finds itself with a virtually unlimited ability to impose and control. Historically, there are only three ways such tyranny has come to an end. First, such governments can be destroyed from he outside. Iraq is a recent example. Second, they will collapse under their own weight as the Soviet Union did and we are coming very close to. Or the people will rise up in revolution. This can be violent or non-violent. In India it was primarily non-violent. Our revolution was violent. Both were rebellions against Great Britain and the only difference were the choices Great Britain, not the revolutionaries, made. If the despotic government in power chooses to negotiate, the revolution can proceed along non-violent lines. If, however, the tyrannical power chooses to hold onto its power no matter what and not allow its people even to leave, the people have only two choices. They will submit to being slaves or they will rise up and fight for their freedom using whatever means they have at their disposal.
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force. Like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearfulsome master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action”
George Washington
Before any revolution will take hold among the people,however, there needs to be a separation in the minds of the people between the idea of “America” and our current government. America is not our government, America is an idea, it is a set of values and ideals. Most people that live in the United States rarely, if ever, think about what “America” is and what makes it unique among all the nations of the earth. What does it mean to pursue the “American Dream” and how do we define Liberty and Freedom? America was founded on the idea that a national government should interfere in the lives of its citizens at little as possible. “That government governs best that governs least.” Thomas Jefferson. The citizens of America should be free to believe, act, say and become anything they want to as long as those actions do not interfere with the God-given rights of others. Rights; not wishes, desires or sensibilities. Those rights, given to us by God, include the right to life, liberty and the right to pursue that which makes us happy. We have the right to our property and the right to any activity that increases our property that does not infringe on the rights of others to pursue or exercise the same. America embraces the ideals of capitalism and the free market system in which any person can engage in any occupation they choose and they have the right to dispose of the fruits of their labor any way they wish. Americans believe in compassion, we are the most generous people on earth. American civil society is based on Judeo-Christian Biblical principles. The American ideal is one of blind justice in which no man is treated with favoritism. The American vision is one in which there are no distinctions among men based on class, race or religion and a man is free to become anything he desires based on his talent, passion and hard work alone. Americans are entrepreneurial, inventive and have a “can do” spirit and the mentality and wealth those values produced led to most of the inventions that make modern society what it is. Freedom, compassion, justice, liberty, capitalism, inventiveness, virtue and basic morality. These are the historical American ideals, these were the ideals that led to the American Revolution, it was these ideals and values the founders designed our government to protect and enhance. Only to the extent to which our government embraces these values can it be called and “American” government.
“Of liberty I would say, in the whole plentitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
Thomas Jefferson
Consider now the government we have in Washington, and even those at the state and local level. It is a government that takes our property and the more successful we are, the more it takes. It takes this property to feed itself and its army of bureaucrats first and distributes the reminder to other citizens for their support. The creation of this dependent class, a class that has grown to encompass nearly half of the citizenry, has destroyed the values of inventiveness, capitalism, and entrepreneurial spirit that difficult economic situations stimulate. It eliminates their liberty and freedom and discourages their morality and virtue. Our government believes that our rights are derived from its good graces, not from God, on whom it has made war for a century. Our government has, through law, regulation and outright confiscation, sought to destroy capitalism and the free market system, which it has proclaimed a “failure”. It has created protected classes of people within the citizenry that are given special “rights” and privileges. It has forced our compassion through confiscatory taxation. Justice has become more equal for the wealthy, powerful and politically correct than for the rest of us. Governments at all levels have passed laws regulating even the minute of our behavior. Can a government that acts this way be called an “American” government? Is it not time to revisit the injunction contained in the Declaration of Independence regarding our rights and duty concerning governments that fail to secure our rights? Is such talk and action “un-American”?
“I consider the people who constitute a society or nation as the source of all authority in that nation; as free to transact their common concerns by any agents they think proper; to change these agents individually. or the organization of them in form or function whenever they please; that all acts done by these agents under the authority of the nation are the acts of the nation, are obligatory on them...and can in no wise be annulled or affected by any change in the form of government or the persons administering it.”
Thomas Jefferson
If we accept our “right” and “duty” to “alter or abolish” any government that “evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism” what are we to do? One option many have taken is to make their “government footprint” as small as possible. They earn little so they don’t pay to support the tyrannical system or they legally or illegally withhold their income and property. They do their best to exercise their God-given freedom and rights when they can get away with it. They are like Winston in Orwell’s 1984 sitting in a corner writing in his journal where the camera of Big Brother can’t see him. They do their best to fall between the cracks of our totalitarian state; to one degree or another, go underground. Is that any way to live? Perhaps for the short term, it is an option but is a life between the cracks and hoping not to get caught any life at all? It is still a life dictated by the state. By definition, the cracks are there because the state has allowed them or neglected them. That is not freedom.
“Fear is the foundation of most governments”
John Adams
In the past, there have been revolutionaries who have succumbed to terrorism and indiscriminate violence. Such actions are not consistent with the American values previously enumerated, particularly our morality and virtue and a society and nation founded on such violence is no place to live. There are enough nations in the world that have followed this path. However, we have been conditioned to believe that the use of violence in defense of freedom is never justified. We have made heroes and gods out of Gandhi and Dr. King to the point where non-violent protest is the only acceptable form of protest. Certainly, violence should be a last resort. As our founders said in the Declaration of Independence, men are disposed to suffer and will suffer a long time. But a point will come when the abuse becomes unbearable. They hoped to avoid war and violence but ultimately government is force and it can choose to exercise that force when it believes it is in its best interest; and self preservation is always in a government’s best interest. Negotiations and patience will only go so far. We are under no obligation to negotiate away our God given rights nor must we sit back and wait while tyrants whittle away at them over time. The opposite is true. It is our duty not only as patriots but as human beings to resist any infringement on our rights whether the tyrants be elected or self appointed.
“When the principle that force is right becomes the principle of the nation itself, they would not permit an honest minister, were accident to bring one to power, to relax their system of lawless piracy.”
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protest themselves against tyranny in government.”
Thomas Jefferson
We have the right and obligation of resistance to tyranny and it is time we started to exercise that right. Violence, of course, should be the last option on our list but it needs to remain an option. There are other options available right now. There is massive tax protest, defunding the voracious monster that is our government. There is always the remote possibility of actually electing people that will have the courage and integrity to dismantle the beast. There is the refusal to obey unconstitutional and immoral laws dictated by the government like the invasive actions of the census or cooperating with unlawful investigations of our fellows who have been labeled “terrorists” by this administration. Such things require the majority of individuals and businesses to become involved. I sincerely hope that we have time to organize such activities. However, we need to consider what happens when the government takes action against dissident activity. What happens when the EPA shows up at your home with a court order to vacate your property because it has been declared a wetland? Do you leave? How far does your resistance go? What about when the local utility appears on your doorstep to install your government approved thermostat that will remotely regulate your energy use? What if child protective services decides that our religious beliefs or our desire to homeschool our children makes us unfit to raise our them and they want to put them in a more politically correct environment? What do we do when some bureaucrat decides our life is not worth spending health care resources on and we should just take the pain pill and die? At what point do we defend our family, our property and our lives against a totalitarian government? When do you stand proudly in your doorway as a free man against the agents of tyranny with your gun and say “No more!” The time is soon coming when we will be confronted with these situations and we had better be prepared beforehand to make our choice to fight for liberty or meekly allow the government to fasten the remaining chains of our servitude.
"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative,and deciding by a jury of themselves in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved), or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.”
Thomas Jefferson
“Lethargy is the forerunner of death to the public liberty”
Thomas Jefferson
Things have changed, however. Our bondage no longer takes place in secret and the speed and arrogant compulsion by which our government is trying to secure the last of our chains has made many finally sit up and take notice. The response has been one of protests, protests that are becoming more organized and widespread. The government leaders trying to lock these last chains in place are doing their best to ignore and discredit the dissidents and convince the remainder that the chains are really for their own good. Who will win? Over the short term, the protesters might. They may win some elections or change a wavering politician’s mind. The long term, however, is in the hands of the government and it is not about to relinquish one scrap of its power. At the end of the Reagan Revolution, government was bigger. Since the Contract With America, it has grown exponentially. What some have finally realized is that both parties want the power that comes with bigger and more intrusive government. One party may blatantly admit it, as Democrat Barny Frank did recently. However, the proof is in their actions, not their words, and the actions of Washington, no mater which party has been in charge, demonstrate their desire to reduce us to servitude.
“As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties or his possessions.”
James Madison
What if we don’t want to live as slaves? What if we don’t want the government telling us what we can eat, how cold or hot our home is, what car we can drive, where to put our retirement money, how to meet our health needs, how to educate our children....the list could go on. Once upon a time when the “Hate America Crowd” was on the outside looking in, a red-blooded American could say, “America, love it or leave it!” Now that same “hate America crowd” has molded our government and the country into their own Marxist image and they say to us “Amerika, love it or leave it!” What are we to do? We are conflicted because we know and believe in ideals and values we know are, or have been, American ideals and we believe that our government was instituted to reflect those ideals. In our form of government we think that the representatives we send will protect and enhance our values and ensure the continuity of all that has made this country great. In our minds, the government, the land and the ideals are inseparable. It is a fallacy that has led us to accept our descent into servitude with little protest and will prohibit us from mentally considering avenues of self-preservation not sanctioned by the government. We erroneously believe that we can work within our system to bring about major changes and roll back the socialism we have embraced. The system is not ours anymore, it has not been for some time. The system is run by those in power for the perpetuation of that power. Elections are controlled by the two parties and any candidate that wants to rise to the national, and to a large degree, the state, level, have to play the game. Sure, there are a few exceptions, there are a few “Mr. Smiths” in politics but most of them play the game and perpetuate their power. The way money is raised, the way voting districts are drawn, the way the parties use PACs and the ability of incumbents to use media at taxpayer expense all ensure the historical ninety-plus percent reelection rate of even the most dimwitted and outrageous politicians.
“The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.”
“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness by positively uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is patron, the last a punisher.”
Thomas Paine
Even if we could elect a few good men and women, most of government is out of their hands anyway. Once upon a time we had a government that had three coequal branches that were all subject to “We the People”. For a time those branches contested for supremacy. Early on it was the executive under President Jackson which could ignore the supreme court and Lincoln’s tyrannical activities during the civil war. In the twentieth century the courts reasserted themselves and for years citizens bemoaned “legislation from the bench”. Now, the power resides in the vast bureaucracy created by the congress and loosely directed from the executive branch. For example, because the congress is not moving quickly enough to pass cap and trade legislation, the Environmental Protection Agency has stated it will implement a similar program with no input form the people’s representatives necessary. If the courts do not believe so called “Net Neutrality” i.e. government control of the Internet, is constitutional, the Federal Communication Commission will declare it a public utility and regulate it anyway. The myriad of government agencies, all of which appear to have eternal life as Reagan said, pump out tens of thousands of pages of rules and regulations we are expected to know and obey on pain of fine or imprisonment. Again, no input from the people’s representatives necessary. We have gone from a government with three equal branches under the direction and authority of “we the people” to a government run from the top down with the executive bureaucracy on top and “we the people” at the bottom. Government no longer exists to serve us-we exist to provide our treasure and toil to the government. It is a situation that has followed a logical and historical progression that has never been reversed. Power, once attained, is never relinquished voluntarily by the government that finds itself with a virtually unlimited ability to impose and control. Historically, there are only three ways such tyranny has come to an end. First, such governments can be destroyed from he outside. Iraq is a recent example. Second, they will collapse under their own weight as the Soviet Union did and we are coming very close to. Or the people will rise up in revolution. This can be violent or non-violent. In India it was primarily non-violent. Our revolution was violent. Both were rebellions against Great Britain and the only difference were the choices Great Britain, not the revolutionaries, made. If the despotic government in power chooses to negotiate, the revolution can proceed along non-violent lines. If, however, the tyrannical power chooses to hold onto its power no matter what and not allow its people even to leave, the people have only two choices. They will submit to being slaves or they will rise up and fight for their freedom using whatever means they have at their disposal.
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force. Like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearfulsome master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action”
George Washington
Before any revolution will take hold among the people,however, there needs to be a separation in the minds of the people between the idea of “America” and our current government. America is not our government, America is an idea, it is a set of values and ideals. Most people that live in the United States rarely, if ever, think about what “America” is and what makes it unique among all the nations of the earth. What does it mean to pursue the “American Dream” and how do we define Liberty and Freedom? America was founded on the idea that a national government should interfere in the lives of its citizens at little as possible. “That government governs best that governs least.” Thomas Jefferson. The citizens of America should be free to believe, act, say and become anything they want to as long as those actions do not interfere with the God-given rights of others. Rights; not wishes, desires or sensibilities. Those rights, given to us by God, include the right to life, liberty and the right to pursue that which makes us happy. We have the right to our property and the right to any activity that increases our property that does not infringe on the rights of others to pursue or exercise the same. America embraces the ideals of capitalism and the free market system in which any person can engage in any occupation they choose and they have the right to dispose of the fruits of their labor any way they wish. Americans believe in compassion, we are the most generous people on earth. American civil society is based on Judeo-Christian Biblical principles. The American ideal is one of blind justice in which no man is treated with favoritism. The American vision is one in which there are no distinctions among men based on class, race or religion and a man is free to become anything he desires based on his talent, passion and hard work alone. Americans are entrepreneurial, inventive and have a “can do” spirit and the mentality and wealth those values produced led to most of the inventions that make modern society what it is. Freedom, compassion, justice, liberty, capitalism, inventiveness, virtue and basic morality. These are the historical American ideals, these were the ideals that led to the American Revolution, it was these ideals and values the founders designed our government to protect and enhance. Only to the extent to which our government embraces these values can it be called and “American” government.
“Of liberty I would say, in the whole plentitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
Thomas Jefferson
Consider now the government we have in Washington, and even those at the state and local level. It is a government that takes our property and the more successful we are, the more it takes. It takes this property to feed itself and its army of bureaucrats first and distributes the reminder to other citizens for their support. The creation of this dependent class, a class that has grown to encompass nearly half of the citizenry, has destroyed the values of inventiveness, capitalism, and entrepreneurial spirit that difficult economic situations stimulate. It eliminates their liberty and freedom and discourages their morality and virtue. Our government believes that our rights are derived from its good graces, not from God, on whom it has made war for a century. Our government has, through law, regulation and outright confiscation, sought to destroy capitalism and the free market system, which it has proclaimed a “failure”. It has created protected classes of people within the citizenry that are given special “rights” and privileges. It has forced our compassion through confiscatory taxation. Justice has become more equal for the wealthy, powerful and politically correct than for the rest of us. Governments at all levels have passed laws regulating even the minute of our behavior. Can a government that acts this way be called an “American” government? Is it not time to revisit the injunction contained in the Declaration of Independence regarding our rights and duty concerning governments that fail to secure our rights? Is such talk and action “un-American”?
“I consider the people who constitute a society or nation as the source of all authority in that nation; as free to transact their common concerns by any agents they think proper; to change these agents individually. or the organization of them in form or function whenever they please; that all acts done by these agents under the authority of the nation are the acts of the nation, are obligatory on them...and can in no wise be annulled or affected by any change in the form of government or the persons administering it.”
Thomas Jefferson
If we accept our “right” and “duty” to “alter or abolish” any government that “evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism” what are we to do? One option many have taken is to make their “government footprint” as small as possible. They earn little so they don’t pay to support the tyrannical system or they legally or illegally withhold their income and property. They do their best to exercise their God-given freedom and rights when they can get away with it. They are like Winston in Orwell’s 1984 sitting in a corner writing in his journal where the camera of Big Brother can’t see him. They do their best to fall between the cracks of our totalitarian state; to one degree or another, go underground. Is that any way to live? Perhaps for the short term, it is an option but is a life between the cracks and hoping not to get caught any life at all? It is still a life dictated by the state. By definition, the cracks are there because the state has allowed them or neglected them. That is not freedom.
“Fear is the foundation of most governments”
John Adams
In the past, there have been revolutionaries who have succumbed to terrorism and indiscriminate violence. Such actions are not consistent with the American values previously enumerated, particularly our morality and virtue and a society and nation founded on such violence is no place to live. There are enough nations in the world that have followed this path. However, we have been conditioned to believe that the use of violence in defense of freedom is never justified. We have made heroes and gods out of Gandhi and Dr. King to the point where non-violent protest is the only acceptable form of protest. Certainly, violence should be a last resort. As our founders said in the Declaration of Independence, men are disposed to suffer and will suffer a long time. But a point will come when the abuse becomes unbearable. They hoped to avoid war and violence but ultimately government is force and it can choose to exercise that force when it believes it is in its best interest; and self preservation is always in a government’s best interest. Negotiations and patience will only go so far. We are under no obligation to negotiate away our God given rights nor must we sit back and wait while tyrants whittle away at them over time. The opposite is true. It is our duty not only as patriots but as human beings to resist any infringement on our rights whether the tyrants be elected or self appointed.
“When the principle that force is right becomes the principle of the nation itself, they would not permit an honest minister, were accident to bring one to power, to relax their system of lawless piracy.”
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protest themselves against tyranny in government.”
Thomas Jefferson
We have the right and obligation of resistance to tyranny and it is time we started to exercise that right. Violence, of course, should be the last option on our list but it needs to remain an option. There are other options available right now. There is massive tax protest, defunding the voracious monster that is our government. There is always the remote possibility of actually electing people that will have the courage and integrity to dismantle the beast. There is the refusal to obey unconstitutional and immoral laws dictated by the government like the invasive actions of the census or cooperating with unlawful investigations of our fellows who have been labeled “terrorists” by this administration. Such things require the majority of individuals and businesses to become involved. I sincerely hope that we have time to organize such activities. However, we need to consider what happens when the government takes action against dissident activity. What happens when the EPA shows up at your home with a court order to vacate your property because it has been declared a wetland? Do you leave? How far does your resistance go? What about when the local utility appears on your doorstep to install your government approved thermostat that will remotely regulate your energy use? What if child protective services decides that our religious beliefs or our desire to homeschool our children makes us unfit to raise our them and they want to put them in a more politically correct environment? What do we do when some bureaucrat decides our life is not worth spending health care resources on and we should just take the pain pill and die? At what point do we defend our family, our property and our lives against a totalitarian government? When do you stand proudly in your doorway as a free man against the agents of tyranny with your gun and say “No more!” The time is soon coming when we will be confronted with these situations and we had better be prepared beforehand to make our choice to fight for liberty or meekly allow the government to fasten the remaining chains of our servitude.
"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative,and deciding by a jury of themselves in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved), or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.”
Thomas Jefferson
The time is nearly upon us when our hand will be forced one way or another. Power continues to coalesce in Washington and they are endeavoring to find new and creative ways to impose their will on us. They are also following a path to economic disaster that will bring about an opportunity for unimaginable oppression or the rebirth of freedom. Dark times are coming and the struggle between the forces of tyranny and liberty will come to a head. When everything we know know has been torn down what will be rebuilt? Will we allow the current power brokers to create their Marxist utopia and plunge us into total darkness or will we resist the last desperate efforts of a despotic government and witness the renaissance of the American ideal? Will the sons and daughters of liberty come together and assert their rights loudly and forcefully once again or will we meekly descend into socialist oblivion with only a few isolated voices of protest? It is a choice each individual must make. In ten years will we be living in a despotic nation called “Amerika” or will we be rising from the ashes like the phoenix, lady liberty at the fore to reestablish “America” as the light of freedom to the world it once was.
“The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence as persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest and ourselves united. From the conclusion of their war for independence, a nation begins going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of that war will remain on them long, will be made heavier and heavier, till their rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.”
Thomas Jefferson
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Beware Brown's Victory
Today, many in America are breathing a collective sigh of relief over the Republican victory in Massachusetts. To many, it was like pulling the emergency brakes on our collective national train before it headed off into the abyss of totalitarian socialism. Some may believe that this victory is a foretaste of what is coming in November when the Republicans will take back the country and pull us away from the edge of the cliff. At the very least, it will put the kabash on much of President Obama’s agenda, specifically the so-called Health Care Reform. I don’t think we should pop the cork on the champagne just yet.
Has it occurred to anyone that the same game being played by the two parties for decades has been played with this election? We know that the people who have the power will do anything to keep it and see it grow. Beginning with TARP and fueled by the Stimulus Bill and fanned by opposition to Health Care Reform and Cap and Trade, opposition to the Marxist Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda has angered and mobilized the “average” American like never before. They have taken to the streets and marched on Washington. Some are openly calling for a second American Revolution. This makes the people in power very nervous. The engine that is our government is fed by our toil and treasure and is headed toward socialism. The boiler is fed a steady diet of Marxism but President Obama has stoked those fires far beyond the capacity of the people to take it. The boiler was about to explode. The Marxists didn’t want to backtrack and admit they were wrong because their believe they are smarter than the rest of us. If they admitted they were wrong on Health Care, people may begin to wonder if they are wrong on other agenda items. In the middle of this overheated environment, Scott Brown comes out of nowhere to win a seat that had been held by Ted Kennedy for forty years in a state where Republicans are as rare as a tax cut in a Democratic budget. The relief valve has been engaged and the Democrats can save face. They have someone to blame-Republican obstructionists-and the opposition thinks they have been “saved” for the time being.
Isn’t this a little too convenient? For months, this seat was a lock for the Democrats, Brown didn’t have a chance. Then, with two weeks to go, an easy double digit lead evaporated. Brown’s opponent stuck her foot in her mouth so often she nearly choked on her high heels. The Democrats were throwing her under the bus for days before the election. Everyone is calling Brown’s victory a stunning reversal for Obama’s policies. Perhaps even the first battle won in the war to take back our country and restore traditional American values to government. Do we really think that a Republican from a New England state is going to reverse our slide into socialism? Do we think that returning the Republicans to the driver’s seat is going to change anything? Will they not, at best, hold the train in place until the Marxists can take another shot at out total subjugation?
Consider the fact that the Reagan Revolution did not make government any smaller. The Republican Revolution in 1994 led to larger and more intrusive government under George Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” and skyrocketing spending. Can’t we see it is all a game? Every year the government in Washington takes more of our wealth and liberty no matter which party is controlling the train. The arrogance and speed of the Obama administration fueled the fires for liberty like never before. It woke people up from the stupor into which a “benevolent” government had put them. Now we are again in danger of being lulled to sleep by the slow, easy motion of the train, once again becoming oblivious to our collective totalitarian destination. We cannot allow this to happen. The longer we wait to effect the resolution between liberty and tyranny, the more difficult and costly the struggle will become. If we allow our patriotic passions to subside in the mistaken belief that we have averted disaster, the next wave of totalitarian effort may be too great to resist.
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and the Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.” Thomas Jefferson
The wolves have set about devouring our liberty, and have for a long time. They are prepared to gulp down the last remaining scraps and have paused for only a moment. As for me and my family, we are not satisfied with the few morsels of freedom still conceded by this government. Are you? If not, will you retain your passion? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to drive the wolves away and once again restore America as the land of the free and the home of the brave?
www.patricksamuels.com
Has it occurred to anyone that the same game being played by the two parties for decades has been played with this election? We know that the people who have the power will do anything to keep it and see it grow. Beginning with TARP and fueled by the Stimulus Bill and fanned by opposition to Health Care Reform and Cap and Trade, opposition to the Marxist Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda has angered and mobilized the “average” American like never before. They have taken to the streets and marched on Washington. Some are openly calling for a second American Revolution. This makes the people in power very nervous. The engine that is our government is fed by our toil and treasure and is headed toward socialism. The boiler is fed a steady diet of Marxism but President Obama has stoked those fires far beyond the capacity of the people to take it. The boiler was about to explode. The Marxists didn’t want to backtrack and admit they were wrong because their believe they are smarter than the rest of us. If they admitted they were wrong on Health Care, people may begin to wonder if they are wrong on other agenda items. In the middle of this overheated environment, Scott Brown comes out of nowhere to win a seat that had been held by Ted Kennedy for forty years in a state where Republicans are as rare as a tax cut in a Democratic budget. The relief valve has been engaged and the Democrats can save face. They have someone to blame-Republican obstructionists-and the opposition thinks they have been “saved” for the time being.
Isn’t this a little too convenient? For months, this seat was a lock for the Democrats, Brown didn’t have a chance. Then, with two weeks to go, an easy double digit lead evaporated. Brown’s opponent stuck her foot in her mouth so often she nearly choked on her high heels. The Democrats were throwing her under the bus for days before the election. Everyone is calling Brown’s victory a stunning reversal for Obama’s policies. Perhaps even the first battle won in the war to take back our country and restore traditional American values to government. Do we really think that a Republican from a New England state is going to reverse our slide into socialism? Do we think that returning the Republicans to the driver’s seat is going to change anything? Will they not, at best, hold the train in place until the Marxists can take another shot at out total subjugation?
Consider the fact that the Reagan Revolution did not make government any smaller. The Republican Revolution in 1994 led to larger and more intrusive government under George Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” and skyrocketing spending. Can’t we see it is all a game? Every year the government in Washington takes more of our wealth and liberty no matter which party is controlling the train. The arrogance and speed of the Obama administration fueled the fires for liberty like never before. It woke people up from the stupor into which a “benevolent” government had put them. Now we are again in danger of being lulled to sleep by the slow, easy motion of the train, once again becoming oblivious to our collective totalitarian destination. We cannot allow this to happen. The longer we wait to effect the resolution between liberty and tyranny, the more difficult and costly the struggle will become. If we allow our patriotic passions to subside in the mistaken belief that we have averted disaster, the next wave of totalitarian effort may be too great to resist.
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and the Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.” Thomas Jefferson
The wolves have set about devouring our liberty, and have for a long time. They are prepared to gulp down the last remaining scraps and have paused for only a moment. As for me and my family, we are not satisfied with the few morsels of freedom still conceded by this government. Are you? If not, will you retain your passion? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to drive the wolves away and once again restore America as the land of the free and the home of the brave?
www.patricksamuels.com
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