Earlier today, Rand Paul, the Republican Senator from KY, began a
filibuster of the nomination of Obama appointee, John Brennan, to
head up the CIA. Paul is conducting this filibuster in an attempt
to force President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to
declare their allegiance to the Writ of Habeas Corpus (Section 9)
and the right to trial by Jury (5th Amendment) as guaranteed by the
U.S. Constitution. He is demanding that they state categorically
that the Executive branch does not have the authority to
unilaterally target for death, any American citizen on American
soil who does not pose an immediate threat. So far, both have
refused to make a clear declaration.
If you are not already concerned, then you haven't been paying
attention!
We now have a government that has gone mad with power and has no
hesitation in mowing down any pesky constitutional concerns that
still get in its way. Rand Paul has drawn a line in the sand and is
taking a firm stand for limiting the government to its ennumerated
powers and for protecting all of our rights. This filibuster is a
symbolic act, and a very important one. The question is will the
administration be forced to concede that their are limits to its
actions, or will this filibuster simply fizzle out and soon be
forgotten, along with the last remnants of our rights.
You can either sit back and wait to see what happens, or you can
place yourself on the front lines and act to support this effort.
I am asking everyone who reads this to act — and act immediately
to provide support for what Rand Paul is doing. First, you can
visit his Facebook
page and adding your voice to the may others who are standing behind
this effort. Follow this by going to his Senate
Contact page, and
leaving a personal message expressing your support for what he is
doing. And then, most importantly of all, write a letter to the
editors of your local papers, letting them know that there is
considerable grassroots support for what Paul is doing—and
why he is doing it. Contact like-minded friends and family and see
if you can convince them to contribute their voice as well. In the big
scheme of things, this may seem like only a small and inconsequential
act, but I say that it is the first of many to come. Let's make this
one count for all that it is worth!
For those interested, the filibuster can viewed live on
C-SPAN2
Thanks to all of you for your willingness to fight for the cause of
liberty. It means a great deal to me.
UPDATE:
9:30 PM PST: Here is a link to a new
White
House Petition asking that the president to respond to Rand
Paul on the drone strike issue. Sign it!
Subject: The Straw
Back on September 17th, during his weekly radio address,
President Obama proclaimed that Americans must finally start paying
their "fair share" in order to reduce the federal deficit. Of
course this is all just verbal misdirection used to hide the fact
that what he is actually talking about is merely another run at one
of the most important goals of his administration —
wealth redistribution — from those who have earned
it to those that covet it, with the ruling government class taking
their usual handling fee in the process.
And who is it that is not paying their fair share? Of course
it is certainly not the virtuous bottom 50% of wage-earners who
contribute little to nothing in income and payroll tax. (The bottom
47% pay no income tax at all, and that is precisely what makes them
virtuous!) No, according to Obama, it's the greedy, cheating, wealthy
households and businesses — the now famous 1% — that have
been holding out on the rest of us, and justice demands that they must
finally be forced to pay up.
And how are the top 1% fleecing us? By currently carrying only 40% of
the total income and payroll tax burden (up from 18% in 1980). And if
you increase that pool to the top 1.5% of households, representing the
magic $250,000 income number, then that group pays roughly half the
total. (For more details, see this article.)
So one is forced to ask, in Obama's mind just what level of tax burden
does he deem to be fair to impose upon that small minority of
Americans? Is it sixty percent? Seventy percent? More? He never
tells us, because there is no hard and fast answer. For Obama, merely
earning more than someone else is all the evidence required to condemn
that person and justify the use of government force to confiscate their
ill gotten "surplus."
Billionaire businessman Warren Buffett seems to agree with Obama's
egalitarian philosophy, and famously issued his call to
"Stop Coddling the Super-Rich",
demanding that the government raise taxes on him and other wealthy
people. Taking up the cause, a group of twenty-four "Patriotic
Millionaires" descended upon the Capitol to demand that Congress
raise taxes on the wealthy in order to deal with the serious federal
budget deficits and growing national debt. And just how serious were
they? When confronted by reporter Michelle Fields of The Daily Caller
(video below) and offered the opportunity to use their great wealth
to make a voluntary debt reduction contribution to the Treasury
Department, they all refused. And neither can I recall Buffett
volunteering some or all of his fortune towards that end. It does
make one wonder whether these patriots are truly concerned
about the debt. Or instead, is it possible that their actual motives
are not quite so altruistic, having more to do with seeing the chains
restricting the freedom and property rights of others pulled ever
tighter, even if it ends up impacting them as well?
"Patriotic Millionaires?"
In 1957, the author and philosopher Ayn Rand published the novel
Atlas
Shrugged, depicting the consequences that inevitably result
from government intervention in the realm of economics. As that story
unfolds, we see the government exerting more and more control over
business activities. However, instead of achieving the promised
improvement, we observe conditions continuing to deteriorate at an
ever accelerating pace. As government policies tie the hands of
competent business leaders, making it increasingly difficult for them
to act on their independent judgment and in service of their own goals,
we do not find them running to the politicians and begging to be
altruistically sacrificed on the pyre of subjugation as we witnessed
with our patriotic millionaires. No. Possessing far too much
integrity to abase themselves in that way, these men and women decide
to go on strike by simply disappearing and leaving the problems of
managing economic production to those who condemn them for their
ability to successfully do so.
Over the past few years more and more people have been shocked to
see in how many ways Atlas Shrugged has proved to be prophetic
in anticipating the specifics actions and consequences that have
resulted from bad political actions driven by an underlying evil
philosophy. And the idea that men of ability, when pressed too far
would choose to strike, is one literary device that has dramatically
presaged today's reality. As Rand put it in a conversation between
her characters, Francisco d'Anconia and Hank Rearden:
"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his
shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his
chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still
trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength,
and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down
upon his shoulders-what would you tell him to do?"
"I . . . don't know. What . . . could he do? What would you
tell him?"
"To shrug."
Here are some examples of real-life strikers in action:
Stealing from the rich isn't an idea original to Obama; people have
been trying it ever since Ogg caught his first wild boar and Yuup
decided that he would like his "fair share" of that. But
hiring a group of thugs, called "politicians", and getting them to do
all the hard work for you was certainly a civilizing advancement! In
2008, the Maryland "Yuups" identified their "Oggs", and they were
called millionaires. Here's what happened, as reported in the
Wall
Street Journal:
Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state
tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy.
Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket,
raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And
because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose
income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as
9.45%. Governor Martin O'Malley, a dedicated class warrior,
declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were "willing and
able to pay their fair share." The Baltimore Sun predicted
the rich would "grin and bear it."
One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the
millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In
2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were
filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which
the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial
decline." On those missing returns, the government collects
6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the
extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires
paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year —
even at higher rates.
Push too hard on your victims, and just like Keyser Söze, "Poof,
they're gone!"
On occasion, a few of these individuals will make public the reasons
for their departure, similar to the radio address delivered by
John Galt towards
the end of Atlas Shrugged. Here are excerpts from two such
letters:
Good
Bye and Good Luck, by former Illinois state senator, Roger
Keats.
As we leave Illinois for good, I wanted to say goodbye to my
friends and wish all of you well. I am a lifelong son of the
heartland and proud of it. After 60 years, I leave Illinois
with a heavy heart. BUT enough is enough! The leaders of
Illinois refuse to see we can't continue going in the direction
we are and expect people who have options to stay here. I
remember when Illinois had 25 congressmen. In 2012 we will
have 18. Compared to the rest of the country we have lost
1/4rd [sic] of our population. ...
We live in the most corrupt big city, in the most corrupt big
county in the most corrupt state in America. I am sick and
tired of subsidizing crooks. A day rarely passes without an
article about the corruption and incompetence. Chicago even
got caught rigging the tests to hire police and fire! Our
Crook County CORPORATE property tax system is intentionally
corrupt. The Democrat State Chairman who is also the Speaker
of the Illinois House and the most senior alderman in Chicago
each make well over a million dollars a year putting the fix
in for their client's tax assessments. ...
Our home value is down 40%, our property taxes are up 20% and
our local schools have still another referendum on the ballot
to increase taxes over 20% in one year. I could go on, but
enough is enough. I feel as if we are standing on the deck of
the Titanic and I can see the icebergs right in front of us.
I will miss our friends a great deal. I have called Illinois
home for essentially my entire life. But it is time to go
where there is honest, competent and cost effective government.
We have chosen to vote with our feet and our wallets. My best
to all of you and Good luck!
Why
I'm Leaving New York, by Tom Golisano, Chairman of the
Board of Paychex, Inc.
I love New York. But how much should it cost to call New York
home? Decades of out-of-control budgets, spending increases
and relentless borrowing have made New York simply too
expensive.
Politicians like to talk about incentives — incentives
for businesses to relocate, incentives to buy local and
incentives to make smart decisions. After reviewing the 2009
budget, I have identified the most compelling incentive of all:
a major tax break immediately available to all New Yorkers. To
be eligible, you need only do one thing: move out of New York
state.
Last week I spent 90 minutes doing a couple simple things:
registering to vote, changing my driver's license, filling out
a domicile certificate and signing a homestead certificate
— in Florida. Combined with spending 184 days a year
outside New York, these simple procedures will save me over
$5 million in New York taxes annually.
That savings doesn't include that Florida has a 6 percent sales
tax, compared to New York's 8 percent or more. Florida has
lower utility taxes and lower gasoline taxes. The Florida
homestead certificate guarantees my property taxes will not
grow more than 3 percent. ...
It's not an easy decision, but I'm being forced away from my
family and friends, a pain shared by too many parents and
grandparents in this state.
I'm leaving. And by domiciling in Florida, I will personally
save $13,800 every single day. That's a pretty strong
incentive.
Like I said, I love New York, but I'm not going to pay New York
more for the waste, corruption and inefficiency that is New
York state government.
The same story has played out over and over again in
New Jersey,
New York,
Rhode Island,
Illinois
and elsewhere. And it's not just wealthy individuals, but entire
businesses which also look to relocate when the burden becomes too
great. As reported in CNN Money:
Buffeted by high taxes, strict regulations and uncertain state
budgets, a growing number of California companies are seeking
friendlier business environments outside of the Golden State.
And governors around the country, smelling blood in the water,
have stepped up their courtship of California companies.
Officials in states like Florida, Texas, Arizona and Utah are
telling California firms how business-friendly they are in
comparison.
Companies are "disinvesting" in California at a rate five
times greater than just two years ago, said Joseph Vranich, a
business relocation expert based in Irvine. This includes
leaving altogether, establishing divisions elsewhere or opting
not to set up shop in California.
Late Tuesday night, Democrats in the Illinois house and senate
rammed through Governor Pat Quinn's 67% hike in the state
income tax and a nearly 50% jump in the state corporate tax.
The increase will add $1,400 to the average family's tax bill,
and we doubt it will help job creation in a state that has lost
374,000 jobs since 2008.
New Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker immediately rolled out a
press release inviting Illinois businesses to decamp to the
Badger State, contrasting his agenda to reduce taxes and
welcome business with the Illinois increase. Indiana Governor
Mitch Daniels added: "We already had an edge on Illinois in
terms of the cost of doing business, and this is going to make
it significantly wider."
Contrary to what progressive state politicians repeatedly try to
tell themselves,
so long as alternatives are available, intelligent individuals and
businesses will not merely sit back and "take it", but will
continue to pursue what is in their best interest. When one state acts
abusively, there are 49 other possibilities to explore in order to
locate a healthier environment. However, when the federal government
gets involved in imposing its punitive taxes and regulation across the
entire country, then options become much more limited, difficult and
costly. For certain large scale industries and very wealthy
individuals, there may be the possibility of moving business or
investments offshore. But in many other cases, the problems created
by political intervention simply outweight all of the alternatives.
The tipping point is finally reached, and the most sensible path is to
simply call it quits — a phenomenon that has been accelerating
in recent years and has come to be known as "Going Galt".
In the Tri-City Herald
we here the story of Bob Bertsch:
It took Bob Bertsch 25 years to build his construction business
and just a day for it all to go away.
Bertsch, 65, said he is down-sizing because the tax burden got
too expensive to stay in business.
"I am tired of carrying all the tax load," Bertsch said. "I
renew 13 licenses here every year just so I can spend money in
this city."
Bertsch makes no attempt to conceal his frustration with the
costs government imposes on small businesses like his.
"Government is killing small business. We used to have 24
employees at our peak. Now, all of those people who used to
work here are in unemployment lines," he said.
On David McElroy's
Blog, he recounts the words of Alabama coal mine operator Ronnie
Bryant who, after having listened to two hours of business-bashing
by the public, environmentalists and politicians, had this to say:
My name's Ronnie Bryant, and I'm a mine operator. I've been
issued a [state] permit in the recent past for [waste water]
discharge, and after standing in this room today listening to
the comments being made by the people ... [pause]
Nearly every day without fail — I have a different
perspective — men stream to these [mining] operations
looking for work in Walker County. They can't pay their
mortgage. They can't pay their car note. They can't feed
their families. They don't have health insurance. And as I
stand here today, I just ... you know ... what's the use?
I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would
employ probably 125 people. They'd be paid wages from $50,000
to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to
$60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work.
And my only idea today is to go home. What's the use? I don't
know.
I mean, I see these guys — I see them with tears in
their eyes — looking for work. And if there's so much
opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there's
no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them.
So as I stood against the wall here today, basically what I've
decided is not to open the mine. I'm just quitting. Thank you.
Zero Hedge
posted the letter that hedge fund manager Ann Barnhardt sent to
clients, announcing the closure of her business. Excerpts follow:
Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt
Capital Management,
It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I
announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased
operations. After six years of operating as an independent
introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a
broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the
first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and
options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere
spectator.
The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly
simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and
positions were safe in the futures and options markets —
because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients,
but for every futures and options account in the United States.
The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global
collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good
conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting
trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to
be in jeopardy. ...
Everything changed just a few short weeks ago. A firm, led by
a crony of the Obama regime, stole all of the non-margined cash
held by customers of his firm. ... What was a surprise was the
reaction of the exchanges and regulators. Their reaction has
been to take a bad situation and make it orders of magnitude
worse. Specifically, they froze customers out of their
accounts WHILE THE MARKETS CONTINUED TO TRADE, refusing to even
allow them to liquidate. This is unfathomable. The risk
exposure precedent that has been set is completely intolerable
and has destroyed the entire industry paradigm. ...
I will not, under any circumstance, consider reforming and
re-opening Barnhardt Capital Management, or any other iteration
of a brokerage business, until Barack Obama has been removed
from office AND the government of the United States has been
sufficiently reformed and repopulated so as to engender my
total and complete confidence in the government, its adherence
to and enforcement of the rule of law, and in its competent and
just regulatory oversight of any commodities markets that may
reform.
The Hazleton, PA Standard Speaker
reports that Dr. Frank C. Polidora, an orthopedic surgeon, quits:
A Hazleton doctor is resigning from the medical staff of St.
Luke's Miners' Memorial Hospital, Coaldale.
Dr. Frank C. Polidora, a longtime Hazleton orthopedic surgeon,
blames the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act in March for his decision. He has been on the
hospital's staff since 2003.
"The Democrats' 'passage' of OBAMACARE on March 21, 2010, was
the final straw," Polidora wrote in his resignation letter to
William Crossin, chief executive officer of St. Luke's-Miners.
The resignation is effective Saturday.
Contacted Thursday, Polidora said his decision to leave had
nothing to do with the hospital, a facility he praised.
Rather, it was about following his own principles. ...
"To be a true physician, one must be moral. To be moral
requires freedom, both political and economic. The freedom of
the physician has been lost by degrees over the last 45 years,"
he wrote in his letter. "OBAMACARE has totally destroyed this
freedom, especially as it applies to a hospital practice." ...
"I fear for the future of the hospital as those in power in our
country are seeking to replace the practice of medicine, the
profession of healing, with an industry that produces health,
but who will, intentionally or not, create a process that
removes the unhealthy," Polidora said in his resignation letter.
The Wall Street Journal
discusses Thomas Depping's decision to close Main Street Bank:
Main Street Bank lends most of its money to small businesses
and is earning decent profits. But the Kingwood, Texas, bank
is about to get out of the banking business.
In an extreme example of the frustration felt by many bankers
as regulators toughen their oversight of the nation's financial
institutions, Main Street's chairman, Thomas Depping, is
expected to announce Wednesday that the 27-year-old bank will
surrender its banking charter and sell its four branches to a
nearby bank.
Mr. Depping plans to set up a new lender that will operate
beyond the reach of banking regulators — and the
deposit-insurance safety net. ... "The regulatory environment
makes it very difficult to do what we do," says Mr. Depping.
...
Bankers have long complained about their overseers, but it is
rare for a bank to basically close its doors aside from an
acquisition or failure. Mr. Depping blames the move on a
tightening regulatory noose.
In the beginning it was a dream. I would own a restaurant in
East Hampton. It would be a warm, beautiful place with great
food and wonderful service. It would become one of the most
popular restaurants in the Hamptons. ...
So why am I selling one of the most successful restaurants in
East Hampton? In 2008 I watched Barack Obama run over Hillary
Clinton to become our President. From the very first "Yes We
Can" and "Change You Can Believe In," I decided that this
country was falling in love with an attractive,
great-speechmaking hustler/socialist who, if he got into
office, was going to pursue his agenda to destroy the best
health care in the world and re-distribute wealth. Yours and
mine. I told my friends that from that moment on everything
I owned — my houses, my advertising business, my
newspaper and my restaurant — was for sale. ...
Why does this so go against my grain? Maybe it's because of
where I've come from to get to where I am. I've been broke,
so broke with a wife and kids and no job that I had to borrow
money from my parents, who didn't have it for themselves but
always managed to come up with it for me.
I got lucky and worked day and night and built a great
advertising agency. I have employed thousands of people in
my lifetime. I've been good to them and they have been good
to me.
I'm just not ready to have my wealth redistributed. I'm not
ready to pay more tax money than the next guy because I provide
jobs and because I work a 60-hour week and I earn more than
$250,000 a year.
So why am I dropping out? Read a brilliant book by Ayn Rand
called Atlas Shrugged, and you'll know.
For every newsworthy story of an individual or business that decides
to throw in the towel, there are untold others that go unreported.
Many businesses — and sometimes entire industries — are
destroyed by a burden of taxes and regulations that simply cannot be
borne in a market-driven economy. This much is at least clear to
some.
But what gets little discussion is the psychological toll that all
of this government intervention takes. What few seem to understand
is that for the small minority who are prepared to accept full
responsibility for themselves — living by their own thought,
judgment, goals and actions — each unreasonable tax is not
merely a burden, but is seen to be a gross injustice; every new
piece of legislation is another set of circus hoops through which
one is forced to jump; regulations are a leash, and every regulator
a self-appointed master with a whip in hand. For the independent man
or woman, government intervention attempts to reduce them from their
stature as fully human, to some form of caged beast under the constant
control of others.
Government intervention is the supreme demotivator!
It hammers away at passion. It undermines creativity. It erodes
drive and the will to succeed. It destroys the joy found in action
and the pride realized through success.
To put it simply, it drains the fun out of life.
In an attempt to place a monetary price tag on our economic losses,
enormous energy is invested by bureaucrats, analysts, pundits and the
media in calculating debt ratios, unemployment levels, energy costs,
borrowing fluidity, and any number of other metrics. All the while
the real price being paid — the total loss of human motive
willpower — dwarfs all of those calculations, but goes
unacknowledged. Go back and reread the stories above and look for
what they all have in common. These once productive individuals, all
of them wealth and job creators, have pulled the plug on their
endeavors. And why? Because, thanks to government intervention, they
can no longer find the joy that their work once brought them. The
rewards of hard work have been lowered while the costs have increased,
to a point where further effort is no longer justified — at
which point, it's time to shrug.
If you see the issue in this light, then you can understand why, when
Ayn Rand spoke of the struggle for our future, she did not describe it
principally in economic or political terms, but instead framed it as
something much more important: a moral battle — a fight for the
true nature and soul of mankind. At its most fundamental level, each
person must strive for their passion — their joy — their
happiness. And they must oppose anything that stands in the path of
those pursuits.
Today, the greatest obstacle standing in our way is a government that
has escaped its constitutional straitjacket and become an oppressive
monster, injecting itself into every crevice of our lives. If we are
to move forward along a path to where we once again can assert
ourselves as individuals, in full control over our own destines, then
it is imperative that each political action we take be directed
squarely at that goal. Half-hearted stop-gap measures will not solve
this problem, and are in fact, partly responsible for what led us to
this moment. It is time to apply the ultimate litmus test to every
statement uttered by every person aspiring for political office:
Does this candidate articulate a consistent set of well defined
policies that support my personal independence? If he accomplishes
the things he is proposing, will this maximize the opportunity to
pursue my life passionately, allowing me to set my own goals in
service of my own definition of happiness?
I suggest that if you cannot respond with an unreserved "Yes!",
then this is not a candidate worthy of your support. Reject him or
her and seek out another who has earned the right to represent you
by demonstrating that they fully understand and respect the right to
your personal independence.
Never compromise when extending your political support, for doing so
is simply an indirect way of compromising on your own life, your
values, and ultimately your joy. Always consider just what you
demand of yourself when pursuing your goals, and then be sure to never
settle for anything less from those in whom you are prepared to vest
with political power as your representative. This is the only strategy
that has any long range hope of correcting our current situation.
Anything less is a recipe for our continued cultural descent.
P.S. 01-06-12:
Here is a link to an article by Hungarian entrepreneur Andor Jakab,
who explains in detail precisely why he's not even considering
getting started building up a new business. The final straw can
break some before they even get out of the gate!
This
Is Why I Don't Give You A Job
Subject: We've Got a Social Disease
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
— Ayn Rand
We hear the message from every quarter: "Help thy
neighbor", "You are your brother's keeper",
"It takes a village". These are all expressions of the
philosophy of altruism, which prohibits a self-interested and
therefore a self-responsible concern for one's own wellbeing,
substituting in its place an external focus on the welfare of others.
In the personal arena, a constant exposure to this message results in
a society where people are trained to pay very close attention to the
actions of their friends, neighbors, and even complete strangers.
Since they have been instructed to be responsible for the safety and
wellbeing of others, it often becomes necessary to intervene in their
lives in order to advise against mistakes or actions that are judged to
be foolhardy or dangerous. And this leads to the establishment of the
busybody as an accepted social norm. Do you choose not
to wear a bike helmet, or recycle, or shop at the local organic grocery
store? The busybody has no hesitation in informing you of your error
— and feeling great about it — regardless of whether or not
you desire and have invited their input. After all, it's only for your
own good, and they have been told that this "selfless" intrusion
into your life is the essence of the morally good.
However, there can be a problem. Sometimes the other person —
the object of these good intentions — simply will not listen to
and adopt the recommendations that are being offered, so generously,
in their own best interest. It can be frustrating when someone else
doesn't see, understand and accept what is so clearly the proper way
to think and act. Maybe their problem stems from a poor upbringing and
exposure to the wrong influences. Or possibly they are distracted
by other concerns, leaving them with a dangerous blind spot. Or, as
is often judged to be the case, they may simply not be smart enough
to work out out the optimal course of action on their own. Whatever
the reason, the busybody, looking for other ways to help, turns to
government — the repository of force — in order to make
sure that these misguided people are made to do the right thing.
Here are a couple of examples:
Well neighbor, you didn't listen to me when I warned you about the
importance of wearing you seatbelt during that trip to the corner
grocery, so I decided to help you anyway by voting for a
legislature willing to enact a mandatory seatbelt law. Maybe that
$200 fine will get your attention and help you to start thinking
straight. Oh, and you're welcome!
Hello there my Samoan
brother. Can't you see that you are being exploited by the
capitalist oppressors runing the tuna industry? They offer you
jobs in their canning factories at wages that I would not allow
them to pay to my dog! Why do you not rise up and demand to be
treated fairly? Well, if you will not stand up for yourself, being
the busybody and savior that I am, I will do it for you by making
sure that the U.S. Congress raises the minimum wage to acceptable
levels. What? Starkist and Chicken of the Sea just moved their
operations to other countries and now you are unemployed with no
other jobs available? Well, at least you should be happy that you
are no longer being oppressed! And have no fear my friend, for my
love and concern for you is boundless and I will not let you
starve. Please accept this can of dog food, complements of the
compassionate American welfare system. My mission here is
accomplished. Onward and upwards.
Busybodies in private life are annoying, but when these same people
move into government where they can impose their views upon others, not
through persuasion, but by force, they then become a very real danger.
This country was founded on Enlightenment principles which held the
sovereign individual, in possession of inherent rights, as the
fundamental unit from which more complex social organizations were
then formed through mutual voluntary association. However, the
influence of altruism has slowly transformed our culture towards a
collectivist view, where many people now see "society" as the
preeminent social unit, with the individual citizens as subservient
components, each owing a moral duty to the group. And where political
leaders were once seen as representatives, entrusted with the task of
protecting the rights of all citizens so that they might determine
their own course through life in pursuit of their own definition of
happiness, the collective shift has created fertile political ground,
allowing the busybodies to acquire positions of power, transforming
them into totalitarian masters intent upon ruling over
the lives of their subjects.
Over the years, like a Chinese water torture, the transformation from
freedom to oppression has occurred slowly, drip by drip, so that each
incremental change was never large enough to cause the American people
to rise up in rebellion. Starting out with a limited mandate to manage
the post office and post roads, governments, without any express
constitutional authority, simply started to assume control over all
manner of transportation from cabs to buses, to trains to subways
and air travel. Aviation and shipping ports, along with most utilities
and communication mediums were nationalized. Total control over the
money supply was achieved through the creation of a fiat currency
coupled with regulation of the banking system, after which they began
branching out to regulate industry after industry, until they had
accumulated the power to effectively intercede across the entire
economy.
Not satisfied with that, the autocrats also wished to control even the
most minute details of our personal lives. Under the guise of
"public safety", they began to regulate and license
one occupation after another. Starting with medicine, profession after
profession fell under government control, granting to these political
rulers the power to decide if, and under what conditions, we would be
allowed to practice our trade. And once the licensing system was
firmly established, the fiction of public safety was dropped, and
controls on up to 500
occupations including manicurists, flower arrangers and fortune
tellers were implemented. And while they were cementing their ability
to dictate our means of earning a living, these politicians also
created legislation giving them the power to manage our education,
retirement and medical care while redistributing wealth to control
the housing and feeding of some, at the expense of others.
Today, they instruct us on how we may transport our children. They tell
us what we can eat, drink and smoke. They determine how and what we
may build on our property, and require us to seek supervised permission
should we wish to remodel a bathroom. We must submit to being groped
at an airport, and our computer can be confiscated and searched at will
without a warrant. School children are forced to perform mandatory
community service, and two years of mandatory national service is
currently being proposed for all adults. And on and on it goes. Every
step in this abusive accumulation of power and exercise of control, has
resulted in the loss of each citizen's individual rights, while always
being justified by the altruistic claim that it is done with only the
best interest of others as the goal. Could that be so? Even if we
disagree with the results, are the politicians truly well-meaning in
their intentions, having only our best interest at heart?
Every once in a while an opportunity presents itself to strips away
the facade, allowing us to see the true nature of those politicians
who claim to be our benefactors. Such an event recently took place
in New Castle, NY, as reported
here and
here.
Four thirteen year old boys had a dream of becoming entrepreneurs
by buying a hot dog cart and starting a small business venture. In
order to purchase the cart, they would need to save a fair amount of
money, and so, with their parent's approval, they decided to spend
their weekends making cupcakes, cookies and other baked goods and
selling them at a nearby park. During their first outing, the boys
had great success, earning $120 in sales. On the following Sunday,
two of the boys returned to the park and set up their table. A man
with his wife and two children was passing by. He stopped to ask
the boys what they were doing, and they eagerly explained. He then
walked away to make a telephone call. The boys assumed that he was
calling his friends to come down and support their cause, but
instead he had phoned the police who arrived a short time later
and told the boys that they were breaking the law and must stop.
It turns out that in order to sell cupcakes, they would have to
obtain a two-hour vendors permit from the city at a cost of $175,
as well as provide a certificate of insurance for $1 million. So
much for the entrepreneurial plans of four enterprising youth. And
who was the individual who ratted them out? None other than New
Castle Councilman Michael Wolfensohn.
Did Mr. Wolfensohn care enough about the boy's dreams and the lessons
they would learn from their hard work to simply let the matter slide
and instead help them by purchasing a few of their goods? NO. Did
Mr. Wolfensohn make an effort to explain the need to obtain a permit
and then help the boys navigate the bureaucratic system and find a way
to continue without breaking the law? NO. Did Mr. Wolfensohn have
the simple decency to talk directly with the boys, explain his
concerns, and ask them to please halt their sales activity? NO.
With all of these possibilities available to him, what Mr. Wolfensohn
did was treat these innocent children like common criminals and, like
a snitch, turn them in to the cops. And now, Mr. Wolfensohn is
puzzled, because, of course, he only did it for the public good!
Wolfensohn is your typical busybody, who, by being elected
to even the modest post of town councilman, has been transformed into
a petty tyrant, able to inflict great harm within his domain.
He see it as his mission to monitor the actions of those around him
and make sure that they never step outside of the straitjacket of
rules and regulation he so cherishes. Only a person who thrives on
power and control over others could act as Wolfensohn did in this
circumstance. But the important lesson here is to recognize that
Wolfensohn is merely showing us the honest soul of a great many
politicians, including that of our current President. Remember this
the next time you hear some politician tell you that the seatbelt
law or the health care legislation is something that they support
because it is in your best interests. The truth is that while they
speak, they are actually dropping the noose around your neck and
in a moment or two, they will be yanking on the other end of the cord.
Yes, we have a serious social disease, and if we do not inoculate
against it very soon, it is going to kill us.
Here is a copy of the letter I sent to Mr. Wolfensohn and published
on various public sites.
Of Cupcakes and KingsAn Open Letter to Michael Wolfensohn of the Town of New
Castle, NY
Dear Mr. Wolfensohn:
I side with many other people in finding the actions
you have taken against Andrew DeMarchis and Kevin Graff,
halting their sale of homemade cupcakes and treats, to be an
arrogant and reprehensible abuse of power. Like a great many
other politicians from the township level on up to our
President, each of you see yourselves as superior to your
fellow men and women and wish to rule over us, restricting our
free choice to act independently in the pursuit and
realizations of our individual dreams. You believe that your
position grants you the ability to regulate every aspect of our
existence, while reducing the rest of us to the role of beggars
who must come, hat in hand, asking you to grant us your
beatific permission, whether it is to practice our chosen
profession or to sell a measly cupcake — always of course,
accompanied by the necessary bribe, oops, I mean requisite
administrative or licensing fee.
Often, people are confused by the actions of politicians when
they shroud their oppressive and unconstitutional acts in
misdirecting altruistic rhetoric such as the "public
good" or the "general welfare". But here we have a
situation where the naked truth is exposed for anyone to see.
So Mr. Wolfensohn, thank you for stepping out from behind the
curtain and allowing the average citizen to observe the exact
nature of your intentions. You have sent a clear message to
two thirteen year old boys, wiping away any naive innocence
they may have held, and replacing it with a clear understanding
of the exact nature of the oppressive society in which they
live. It is a lesson I am sure they will never forget -- nor
will I. The truth is that through your actions, you have made
me ashamed to be both an adult and an American.
And to everyone else, whether you are a cab driver,
hairdresser, automotive mechanic, realtor, veterinarian,
accountant, lawyer, teacher, nurse, dentist, doctor, architect,
engineer, therapist, florist, librarian, beekeeper, fortune
teller, or any of the hundreds of other licensed and regulated
professions, please remember that you are receiving exactly the
same treatment as Andrew DeMarchis and Kevin Graff. And where
a child should properly be confused and upset at their first
exposure to this sort of treatment, we adults know better and
should be outraged by it! It is time to put a stop to this
abuse. We elected Mr. Wolfensohn, and all of the other
politicians, in order to protect our individual rights to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness — not for them to
become our masters, granted the power to direct and control our
lives. Let each of them know that you are a competent adult,
capable of managing your own affairs and making your own
decisions, and in the name of freedom, you are reasserting your
independence and autonomy and will no longer allow them to tell
you what you may and may not do with your life.
Regards,
—
C. Jeffery Small
You can share your own thoughts with Mr. Wolfensohn by sending him
an email message at: mbwolf@town.new-castle.ny.us
And if you have a comment for one of your Senators or Representatives,
you can find their contact information at: Congress Merge
Subject: Your Property and Property Rights Are Being Dynamited!
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it." — George Santayana
Urban Planning
From
Wikipedia:
In 1947, Saint Louis planners proposed replacement of DeSoto-Carr,
a run-down black neighborhood, with new two- and three-story
residential blocks and a public park. The plan did not
materialize; instead, Democratic mayor Joseph Darst, elected in
1949, and Republican state leaders favored total clearing of the
slums and replacing them with high-rise, high-density public
housing. They reasoned that the new projects would create a net
positive result to the city through increased revenues, new parks,
playgrounds and shopping space.
In 1948 voters rejected the proposal for a municipal loan to
finance the change, but soon the situation was changed with the
Housing Act of 1949 and Missouri state laws that provided
co-financing of public housing projects. The approach taken by
Darst, urban renewal, was shared by Harry S. Truman administration
[sic] and fellow mayors of other cities overwhelmed by
industrial workers recruited during the war. Specifically, Saint
Louis Land Clearance and Redevelopment Authority was authorized
to acquire and demolish the slums of the inner ring and then sell
the land at reduced prices to private developers, fostering
middle-class return and business growth. Another agency, Saint
Louis Housing Authority, had to clear land to construct public
housing for the former slum dwellers.
Pruitt-Igoe was a large urban housing project first occupied
in 1954 and completed in 1955 in the U.S. city of St. Louis,
Missouri. Shortly after its completion, living conditions in
Pruitt-Igoe began to decay; by the late 1960s, the extreme
poverty, crime, and segregation brought the complex a great
deal of infamy as it was covered extensively by the
international press. The complex was designed by architect
Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the World Trade Center
towers.
At 3 PM on March 16, 1972 — 16 years after construction
was finished — the first of the complex's 33 buildings
was demolished by the federal government. The other 32
buildings were destroyed over the next four years. The
high-profile failure of Pruitt-Igoe has become an emblematic
icon often evoked by all sides in public housing policy debate.
Does anything above sound familiar? Government urban planners, with big
ideas and only the best interests of the "general public" at heart,
use the power of the state to seize huge tracts of private land, raze
everything in sight, hand over that land to private developers, and proceed
to create a new social and economic Shangri-La. Except things, for some
unexpected reason, don't really turn out as anticipated! Oh well, don't
worry. We'll get it right next time.
From
Wikipedia:
During the 1950s and 60s, New Haven [Connecticut] received more urban
renewal funding per capita than any city in the United States.
New Haven became the de facto showcase of the new modern redeveloped
city and plans for its downtown development were chronicled in
publications like Time and Harper's magazines throughout the 1950s
and 60s. Robert C. Weaver, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
in the Lyndon Johnson Administration, once said that New Haven during
this time was the closest America has ever been to having a
"slumless" city.
Since 2000, downtown has seen an increasing concentration of new
restaurants, nightlife, and small retail stores. The area has
experienced an influx of hundreds of new and renovated apartment
and condominium units, and a significant number of up-scale
restaurants and nightclubs have opened.
Well, that certainly sounds more promising! However, as an architect
and a resident of New Haven from 1978-1988, I recall a slightly different
picture. Through the 60s, 70s and early 80s, despite being the home to
Yale University, New Haven was an economically depressed area.
All of that urban renewal money had been spent purchasing low-rent
buildings within the downtown core, knocking them down, and creating
temporarily gravel parking lots while wondrous new structures were
planned. However, by the early 1980s, after 25 years of "planning",
most of these areas remained open gravel lots, giving much of the city
the appearance of a bombed war zone rather than a thriving community.
But what about the claims of being a "slumless" city? Well, that might
well be true. Every building within New Haven that offered inexpensive
storefront rents and provided affordable housing on the upper floors
were demolished. All of these self-sufficient business owners were
displaced, as were their clientele, the low-income tenants who had
previously occupied these buildings. With no place left to live or work,
these people moved on to other cities or became new clients of the
state-run subsidized housing developments springing up everywhere.
While private development was being encouraged in the mid-to-late 80s
when I left the state, I think the article's reference to economic
expansion beginning to take real hold after 2000 — a 45-50 year
period of economic stagnation — is the ultimate indictment
against urban renewal. Strike two.
From
Wikipedia:
Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005) was a case
decided by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the
use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to
another to further economic development. The case arose from the
condemnation by New London, Connecticut, of privately owned real
property so that it could be used as part of a comprehensive
redevelopment plan which promised 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million
a year in tax revenues. The Court held in a 5-4 decision
that the general benefits a community enjoyed from economic
growth qualified such redevelopment plans as a permissible
"public use" under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Following the decision, many of the plaintiffs expressed an intent to
find other means by which they could continue contesting the seizure
of their homes. Soon after the decision, city officials announced
plans to charge the residents of the homes for back rent for the five
years since condemnation procedures began. The city contended that the
residents have been on city property for those five years and owe
tens of thousands of dollars of rent. The case was finally resolved
when the City agreed to move Kelo's house to a new location. The
controversy was eventually settled when the city paid substantial
additional compensation to the homeowners.
In spite of repeated efforts, the redeveloper (who stood to get a
91-acre waterfront tract of land for $1 per year) was unable to
obtain financing, and the redevelopment project was abandoned. As
of the beginning of 2010, the original Kelo property was a vacant
lot, generating no tax revenue for the city.
In addition, in September 2009, Pfizer, whose upscale employees were
supposed to be the clientele of the Fort Trumbull redevelopment
project, completed its merger with Wyeth, resulting in a
consolidation of research facilities of the two companies. Shortly
after the merger closed, Pfizer decided to close its New London
facility in favor of one across the Thames River in nearby Groton
by 2011; this move coincides with the expiration of tax breaks on
the New London campus that also expire by 2011, when Pfizer's tax
bill on the property would have increased almost fivefold.
[As reported in the papers] "Pfizer Inc. announced that it is
closing the $350 million research center in New London that was the
anchor for the New London redevelopment plan, and will be relocating
some 1,500 jobs."
Remember, these are the people who believe that they can run automobile
plants, manage the entire US economy, and will soon be in charge of your
life-and-death health care decisions.
In each of the three cases cited above, who knows just how many houses,
businesses, and millions of tax dollars were taken from productive people
who would have furthered their lives and made sensible investments with
their money, only to instead have it squandered by these bureaucrats?
Then, realize that it is not three, but hundreds of similarly failed
experiments taking place across the country each year, and the mind
boggles at the lost wealth, in the billions and trillions, that has been
pumped into these rat holes of disastrous attempts at social engineering
by the central planners. They failed in the 1950s, and again and again
in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, right up through the destruction of the town
of New London, CT in 2009, and still no lesson has been learned —
other than we can have our property confiscated from us at any time, so
long as the magical incantation "for the public good" is first
proclaimed.
Zoning
But until they come along and take your property for some urban planning
scheme, it's yours to do with as you see fit, right? Not a chance. So
called Euclidean Zoning laws, instituted in the early part of the
20th century have long placed a complex set of restrictions on what any
individual could do with their land and buildings. These regulations
specify what types of uses are allowed (residential, commercial,
religious, etc.), the location where any structure may be placed on the
lot, overall land coverage, total usable building area, height, allowable
exterior pavement, types of landscaping required, restrictions on signage,
lighting, grading, drainage, and on and on.
After more than one hundred years of imposing these guidelines and
restrictions all across the country, we must, by now, certainly be living
in a designer's paradise. Well, according to a July 8th article in
Architect magazine titled Brave New Codes,
the result has been as follows:
The separation of uses written into Euclidean zoning codes made
sense to the lawyers who wrote them, but they have the effect
of creating bland and inefficient places, Plater-Zyberk says.
Great places weren't being produced under Euclidean zoning,
according to Plater-Zyberk. "It became evident that this
regulatory framework was really what was driving suburbia,
sprawl, and the things that were being criticized as being
inefficient and unsustainable," Plater-Zyberk says. "It wasn't
that people wanted it to be that way—the codes were just
written that way."
So, the ill effects were not produced because "people wanted it to be
that way", they were forced upon us all because "the codes were
just written that way". Then the solution is obvious! Remove the
zoning codes and let people achieve those better results that they desire.
But no, freedom and choice is never a solution that crosses the mind of
the totalitarian planner. Just as we saw in the case of urban planning,
the zoning advocates believe that they now have all the answers
and can create nirvana with a different set of regulations. So coming
soon to a city near you is Form-based Zoning, the cure for what
ails you.
From
Wikipedia:
Form-based zoning relies on rules applied to development sites
according to both prescriptive and potentially discretionary
criteria.
Design-based codes offer considerably more flexibility in building
uses than do Euclidean codes, but, as they are comparatively new,
may be more challenging to create. [...] When form-based codes
do not contain appropriate illustrations and diagrams, they have
been criticized as being difficult to interpret.
One example of a recently adopted code with design-based features
[...] creates "form districts"
One version of form-based or "form integrated" zoning utilizes
[...] three district components - a use component, a site component
and an architectural component. The use component is similar in
nature to the use districts of euclidian zoning. However, with
an emphasis on form standards, use components are typically more
inclusive and broader in scope. The site components define a
variety of site conditions from low intensity to high intensity
such as size and scale of buildings and parking, accessory
structures, drive-through commercial lanes, landscaping, outdoor
storage and display, vehicle fueling and washing, overhead
commercial service doors, etc. The architectural components
address architectural elements and materials.
As a home or business owner, you have really got to love that
"potentially discretionary criteria". It can really add some
excitement to your life! And as an architect, it has got to be a relief
that the form, elements and material design choices will now be made for
you by a government agency rather than being a decision formulated
between you and your client — much as medical decisions under
nationalized health care will now be dictated by a bureaucrat rather
than resulting from a consultation between patient and doctor.
Here are some additional comments from the Brave New Codes article:
"A lot of times, [the zoning codes are] just telling you what you
can't do." [Peter] Park says Denver's form-based code tries
harder to guide developers and designers toward what they can
do, mainly by being a very visual document.
[Emphasis added]
So instead of being left free to do anything other than what is
specifically restricted, the new codes turn western culture upon
its head by actively prohibiting everything except that which is
explicitly allowed. Your right to use your property is now
being placed in a straitjacket where a few subjective, discretionary
strings are then loosened to allow you some very restricted range of
motion, based not upon what you desire, but upon what others
deem is best.
"If the architects could understand that they're part of a
larger effort of placemaking, and it's not just a restriction
like any old code, I think that they would have a good time
working with form-based codes."
"Often 'design freedom' becomes another term for 'anything goes'
solutions that contribute little, if any, to the collective
enterprise," Jimenez adds. "Limits are not the curtailing of
freedom, but rather opportunities to transcend them."
Translated, this means that, as an architect, I will learn to enjoy my
new role as an implementor of their rules, as soon as I come to accept
my proper place as a comrade in the collective enterprise of
state-mandated placemaking. These people have covered all the
bases and their actions would bring a smile to
Ellsworth
Toohey's face.
This collective premise is so pervasive in our society that many people
are not even aware of the extent of its effect upon them. For example,
in another article in Architect magazine titled If a Tree Falls, the author, Lance Hosey, discussing the
ecological benefits to using regional construction materials, makes the
following offhand statement:
How would the construction industry change if builders were
limited to what's in their own backyards?
Notice that he didn't say "if builder's limited themselves",
but "if builders were limited", ignoring the possibility
of using persuasion and immediately assuming that external force should be
applied against all builders in order to achieve his desired results —
a result which apparently is to be taken as self-evidently correct and
proper. For the collectivist, individual choice and personal freedom
are nonexistent concepts, and all that matters here is an economic
calculation concerning the use of raw materials. Trees and water are
precious. Humans are beneath consideration.
National Social Engineering
Which brings us to the real purpose of this piece. From an
article
written by Bob Livingston, it came to my attention that back on August 6,
2009, Christopher Dodd submitted to the Senate S.1619, a bill
titled the
Livable Communities Act of 2009, which was followed on
February 25, 2010 by the companion House resolution H.R.4690, the
Livable Communities Act of 2010.
On August 3rd, 2010, S.1619 was released from committee and sent to the
Senate and is currently awaiting a vote. Let's examine the major
provisions of this legislation.
Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities
This establishes another huge federal bureaucracy with broad
powers applied at the state, regional and local levels, to
promote planning and construction meeting federal guidelines
for sustainability, energy conservation, affordability, and
mass-transportation.
Implementation of Grant Programs
This sets up a huge sub-bureaucracy for various grant programs
used for the distribution of federal tax dollars to state, regional
and local governmental organizations, as well as to private
consultancy groups. This is the carrot used to induce
participation and the hammer which elicits cooperation, and
ultimately submission, to federal authority.
Interagency Council on Sustainable Communities
This establishes an executive-branch council that coordinates
and oversees the operations of the entire program. Of course,
there would be one or more new czars installed to oversee the
overseerers.
Funding
The initial appropriation through 2013 is in excess of
$3.7 billion.
As has been the case with all recent congressional legislation, the bill
deals with the establishment of a large and complex bureaucratic framework
intended to implement goals which are merely hinted at within the text.
At this point there is no direct way to gage the intentions of, or the
specific actions that might be taken, by those ultimately chosen to staff
this operation. In this way these bills can be made to appear as all
things to all people, while being immune to meaningful criticism.
Nevertheless, I think we can draw a few broad generalities based upon the
goals of those sponsoring this initiative.
The creation of a federal planning and development agency
would be a new and significantly greater infringement upon
the remaining property rights of individuals and businesses.
The additional bureaucracy and costs imposed by this bill would
create a substantial new impediment to economic recovery and
future economic growth.
A large segment of the grant funding can be predicted to go to
eco-groups who will be eager to finally be able to impose their
"green" policies upon everyone else.
The sustainability and energy conservation goals
of this legislation would significantly increase the cost of
construction and energy in an effort to drive development in
a different direction.
The mass-transportation goals of the bill would result
in strictly controlled development corridors of high-density
housing, serviced by rail. Gasoline prices would be forced
significantly higher to discourage the freedom of automobile
usage.
The affordability goals of the bill would be used as
another tool for the redistribution of wealth in the country.
A long term goal might be the elimination of all suburban or
rural homes, with these citizens being forced into cities.
This could easily be accomplished by a congressional act
condemning these properties and then razing the structures,
just as we have seen demonstrated repeatedly by urban planners of
the past.
If central planners of the past were able to create such devastation in
the wake of their grand schemes, imagine the magnitude of harm that could
be unleashed by placing this much power in federal hands.
Global Social Engineering
Dodd's bill is the first significant piece of legislation introduced in
the United States which attempts to implement the goals of
Agenda 21, described by the UN's Division for
Sustainable Development (A division of the UN Department of Economic
and Social Affairs) as follows:
Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally,
nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System,
Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts
on the environment.
Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and
the Statement of principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests
were adopted by more than 178 Governments at the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de
Janerio, Brazil, 3 to 14 June 1992.
During that conference, Agenda 21 was signed by President George H.W. Bush.
A review of this document reveals the following goals:
Unite all nations in a common effort for sustainable development,
with the UN ultimately acting as a super-government having
authority over the remainder of the world's national governments.
National governments are required to "strengthen
institutional structures to allow the full integration of
environmental and developmental issues, at all levels of
decision-making".
A massive redistribution of wealth from the rich (developed)
countries to the poor (undeveloped) ones under the guise of
creating "a more efficient and equitable world economy".
In other words, eliminate world poverty in the name of promoting
sustainable livelihoods and reduce the standard of living
in developed countries as a necessity for reducing environmental
stress.
Developed countries are to provide health care for undeveloped
countries.
Global financial institutions are to be funded by rich countries
in order to implement the environmental policies dictated by
the UN.
By recognizing the "increasing interdependence of the community
of nations", and working to "overcome confrontation",
"foster a climate of genuine cooperation and solidarity",
"strengthen national and international policies", and
by adapting "to the new realities", strong countries are to
be subjugated to the weak.
Use the UN's now discredited IPCC report as justification for
throttling the economies of developed countries.
Adjust all land-use and resource policies to mitigate changes to
the atmosphere, promote bio-diversity, conserve resources,
minimize pollution, promote sustainability, provide shelter for
all, promote sustainable construction, energy distribution,
and transportation.
"Transfer" environmentally sound technology from the
developers to those with a need. (Steal it.)
Promote education, public awareness and training. In other words,
an active propaganda campaign.
Agenda 21 is nothing more than a capitulation of the good to the bad, the
rich to the poor, the strong to the weak, the productive to the
unproductive, the creative to the uncreative, and the free to the unfree,
all under the pretense of a global warming disaster which has been
thoroughly debunked
as one of the worlds biggest lies.
Conclusion
As was the case with Health Care, the Disclose Act and Finance Reform,
the Livable Communities Act is likely to be another piece of legislation
that will be attempted to be pushed through the Democratic Congress with
little regard for the impact upon the constitutional rights of the
citizens of this country, or upon the fragile state of our economy.
This is an administration focused upon one goal only — that being
the consolidation of power — and this bill would expand federal
power into devastating new areas. I encourage everyone to spread the
word about this bill, and to contact your Senators and Representatives
and tell them to vote NO when this Act comes up for consideration.
Subject: 20 Ways ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms
To get a quick overview of how pervasively the new health care
legislation will reach into your pockets and exercise control over
your life, read the article,
20 Ways
ObamaCare Will Take Away Our Freedoms by David Hogberg.
Then get out your wallets and onto your feet and do what you can
to fight back against those, whether in Washington or living next
door, who have demonstrated a total lack of respect for your
constitutional rights and wish to enslave you in service of their
desires. These people are not your friends, and they are only just
getting started.
Subject: The Rights of Man
There is a new activist website titled
The Rights of Man
which, as the name implies, is intended to promote the spread of
ideas in support of individual rights, as articulated in the U.S.
Constitution.
The main thrust of this site is directed at the creation of letters
which can then be easily mailed to selected recipients such as
politicians or media contacts. Additionally, letters made public
on this site may be reviewed by others, and if desired, signed and
mailed by them to the recipients, thereby increasing each letter's
impact.
I encourage you to visit this site and craft your own contributions
in the battle to restore our freedom and rights.
Subject: My Direct Letter to Scott Brown
I just sent Senator-Elect Scott Brown the following letter.
Dear Mr. Brown:
Congratulations on your win last night. I was one of the many
from outside MA that provided financial support for your
campaign leading to this great day for both you and the entire
country. But Mr. Brown, please do not let us down. You have
been sent to Congress for one purpose: to do everything you can
to stop the socialist juggernaut from crushing the spirit of
America. Your job is to defend the rights of every individual
and to cut the scope of government back wherever possible,
doing what you can to return it to its singular function of
protecting our rights, and nothing more. So once you have cast
your vote against the health care legislation as you have
promised, remain true to the principles of the people who
elected you and continue the valiant fight to uphold the U.S.
Constitution. If you do that, you will stand at the forefront
of the Second American Revolution and earn yourself a place in
history.
Do not be seduced by the congressional seat and decide, as so
many others have, that being elected has somehow granted you
the wisdom and the powers to assume the role of making
decisions for and manipulating the lives of the citizens of
this country. Always remember that we are each sovereign
individuals with the constitutionally guaranteed right to our
own lives. We are not wards of the state. This means
that we each get to make the decisions for ourselves as we best
see fit, and that right is not limited to health care, but to
every aspect of how we pursue our lives and every decision we
make in disposing of our earnings. As the Constitution states:
"No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law;"
— Fifth Amendment
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights,
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by
the people."
— Ninth Amendment
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the people"
— Tenth Amendment
The United States government was not granted the powers to make
health care decisions for the citizens, and therefore, it
remains a right of each individual. And that same reasoning
holds true whether it pertains to deciding whether to invest
in an energy efficient appliance, a fuel efficient car,
determining whether and what type of mortgage to obtain, and
whether we wish to provide financial help to a poor individual,
a failing company or a foreign country in the aftermath of an
earthquake. Always remember that the products of each person's
efforts are their property, to dispose of as they
- and only they - see fit. And the choices that they make are
their means of pursuing their own happiness.
The single proper role of federal government is to be a
protector of the rights of the citizens. Every time the
government steps outside that role and passes legislation to
regulate business or personal actions, it has transformed from
a protector into a violator of those rights. The majority of
the text of the U.S. Constitution was written with the express
purpose of constraining government so that it would not violate
its mandate and become an agent of oppression. As you can
clearly see, those protective measures were long ago breached
and this country has been on a rapidly accelerating slide
towards totalitarianism. Please make it your single-minded
purpose to go to Washington D.C. to put the governmental
genie back in its bottle and restore the right of every
citizen to determine their own future.
So again, I send you my best wishes for your victory and am
excited to see you head to Washington and help us all in the
struggle to recover our lost liberty.
Sincerely,
C. Jeffery Small
The election of Scott Brown is a watershed event with many positive
consequences. But Brown has demonstrated with his actions before the
election, and comments made afterwards, that he is not a person who
sees the relationship between a government and its people as it was
intended by the framers of the Constitution. I suggest that everyone
who supported his election write their own letter to Scott Brown,
letting him know that he is representing all citizens of this
country, not just those of his home state, and explain to him your
views and expectations for his term in Congress. Let's make sure that
as he heads off to Washington D.C., he goes with a clear understanding
of his proper role.
Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the
waistlines of citizens over age 40. Anyone deemed too fat
would be required to undergo diet counseling. Those who
fail to lose sufficient weight could face further
"reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.
Is this some nightmarish dystopia?
No, this is contemporary Japan.
The Japanese government argues that it must regulate citizens'
lifestyles because it is paying their health costs.
This is the fate in store for all Americans if we fail to stop
the current health care legislation from passing, for if it does, the
government will finally have a very powerful tools at its disposal,
allowing it to reach into the personal lives of each citizen and
control our actions as it sees fit.
Paul concludes:
Just as universal healthcare will further fuel the nanny state,
the nanny state mind-set helps fuel the drive toward universal
healthcare. Individuals aren't regarded as competent to decide
how to manage their lives and their health. So the government
provides "cradle to grave" coverage of their healthcare.
Nanny state regulations and universal healthcare thus feed a
vicious cycle of increasing government control over individuals.
Both undermine individual responsibility and habituate citizens
to ever-worsening erosions of their individual rights. Both
promote dependence on government. Both undermine the virtues
of independence and rationality. Both jeopardize the very
foundations of a free society.
The American Founding Fathers who fought and died for our
freedoms would be appalled to know their descendants were
allowing the government to dictate what they could eat and
drink. The Founders correctly understood that the proper
role of government is to protect individual rights and
otherwise leave men free to live — not tell us how
many eggs we should eat.
If we still value our freedoms, we must reject both the nanny
state and universal healthcare. Otherwise, it won't be long
before the "Waistline Police" come knocking on our doors.
Read the entire
article.
Paul has it exactly right, except that I would challenge him on one
important point. By categorizing our government as a "nanny
state", he makes the common error of giving the benefit of the
doubt to the government by assuming that its motives are all directed
in our best interest. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Our president and members of Congress know nothing at all about you
and your unique circumstances, and could care less about your personal
wellbeing. They have no interest in being you caregiver. That is
simply a convenient fiction to conceal their true intent, which is to
gain control over your actions and direct your life in service of
their agenda. And their agenda is nothing more than raw, naked
power. To them, you are merely a natural resource to be mined
until your productive vein runs dry. Look at all recent actions taken
or proposed by the government and identify the common denominator as
it pertains to the American public:
Warrantless Wiretaps?
Control!
Declaration of Carbon Dioxide as a Pollutant?
Control!
Outlawing Student Loans from Private Institutions?
Control!
TARP Bailouts - with Strings Attached?
Control!
Nationalization of the Housing Loan Industry?
Control!
Nationalization of the Automotive Industry?
Control!
Nationalization of the Financial Industry?
Control!
Nationalization of the Insurance Industry?
Control!
Nationalization of the Medical Industry?
Control!
Nationalization of the Energy Industry?
Control!
Mandatory Community Service for All School Children?
Control!
Proposed Mandatory National Service for All Citizens?
Control!
And the list goes on. This is on top of the government having already
nationalized the education, utilities and transportation industries,
and heavily regulating the agriculture, manufacturing and
pharmaceutical sectors, to name but a few. Where once we were a free
people in a free country, able to pursue our lives in whatever manner
we chose, so long as we didn't violate the rights of others, today our
lives are so managed that it is extremely difficult to find some area
where an individual may act without first seeking permission, paying
a tax, or worrying that some agency might come behind and judge those
actions to have been in violation of one of the unfathomable number
of regulations that have been enacted.
Don't oppose health care reform because it is bad medicine. Fight it
for all you are worth because it is you personal freedom — and
the freedom of all of your family members — that is at stake.
And that is something worth fighting for!
Do These People Really Have Your Best Interests at Heart?
[Thanks to Cloud Downy for bringing this article
to my attention.]
Subject: Don't Worry, Be Happy! Yeah Right!
In a recent piece in the Los Angeles Times titled
Researchers say it's official: TGIF, baby!, Shari
Roan reports on startling research that reveals that "People are
happier and feel better on the weekends". Who knew? The
article reports:
The study found that people love the freedom associated with
weekends and even feel better physically.
The study reinforces what is known as the "self-determination
theory," which means that well-being is based on one's
personal needs for autonomy, competence and social
relationships.
So, this research from the University of Rochester has concluded that
people find pleasure in "freedom", "personal
autonomy", and "self-determination". Stop the
presses!
Maybe someone should inform the people in Washington D.C. that their
intrusive meddling into the lives of the citizens, with their policies
to regulate our every decision and action, is a clear violation of
our right to the
pursuit of our own happiness.
In fact, let's start with the abomination known as health care reform
which is explicitly designed to eliminate self-determination and
freedom of choice for every one of us, destroying our individual
autonomy and instead, treating us like a herd of cattle. Let's all
make one final effort to contact the White House and our congressional
representatives and let them know, in no uncertain terms, that their
actions are making us VERY UNHAPPY, and that we DEMAND
that they stop violating our unalienable rights and begin protecting
them as they swore an oath to do when they took office.
Oh yeah, and don't forget to let them know that now we have scientific
proof backing us up! :-)
Subject: The Hugest Heist in History
Bradley Harrington writes another excellent open letter regarding the
problems that we face in light of the Obama administration's spending
over just one short year.
THE HUGEST HEIST IN HISTORY
By Bradley Harrington
"What is prudence in the conduct of every private family,
can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom." —
Adam Smith, "The Wealth Of Nations," 1776–
In a commentary I wrote shortly after the 2008 presidential
election, in discussing the upcoming fiscal policies of the
soon-to-be Obama administration, I said: "You are about
to witness a government spending spree that is going to make
the meddling of FDR's 'New Deal' or LBJ's 'Great Society'
look like penny-ante poker in comparison."
I was chastised, at that time, by many for my "alarmist"
prediction. Now, over a year later, let's look at the facts:
(1) Previous spending: in our rear-view mirror, we see nothing
but bailouts—AIG, GM, Chrysler, "stimulus" spending, etc.
Price tag: well over $1 trillion.
(2) Current/projected spending: "jobs" bill just passed by
House; price tag of $154 billion; "omnibus" spending bill just
signed into law by President Obama; price tag of $447 billion;
health care "reform" proposals; price tag of $1 trillion.
"'The New Deal by today's standards involved a miniscule
amount of spending,' said Allan J. Lichtman, a professor
of political history at American University." ("Analysis:
Obama plans eclipsing New Deal spending," Tom Raum, Associated
Press, Feb. 20.)
And more:
(3) Federal budget: fiscal year ending in 2009, $3.1 trillion;
fiscal year 2010, $3.55 trillion, an increase of nearly half a
trillion.
(4) Federal budget deficits: fiscal year 2009, $1.42 trillion;
projected federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2010, $1.2
trillion. Projected federal budget deficits over the next
decade, $9.1 trillion.
(5) National debt: this stood at $9.9 trillion in 2008, and was
lifted to $12.1 trillion in February of this year. And, in
just the last few days, Congress and President Obama lifted
that ceiling again by another $290 billion (barely enough to
fund the federal government's ocean of red ink for another
piddling two months), and both intend to raise that ceiling
again come February, when it is expected to be boosted to
$14 trillion. In fiscal year 2010, this will equal 98.1% of
our GDP.
Translation: Our national debt will soon equal the entire
amount of production of the entire United States for an
entire year.
So, who pays for it all? Who provides the blank check? The
producers, who else? Money does not grow on trees, despite
what our "leaders" seem to think—if they think at all.
And don't kid yourself about how it's only the "rich" who
will pay for this: there simply aren't enough "rich" people
in this country to fund a $14 trillion bill. With a current
population of 308 million, the national debt now exceeds
$40,000 per capita; when the debt ceiling gets raised again
in the next couple of months, that figure will jump to
over $45,000 for every man, woman and child in America.
This, I submit, is an absolute looting spree, happening right
before our eyes, and, as such, constitutes the hugest heist in
all of human history. It is nothing less than an irrational,
amoral, legalized, politically-promoted plundering of the
productive assets of the United States, with no thought or
reason given to the consequences, of which there can only be
one: total, terminal economic dissolution and disintegration.
And what can we expect from such a collapse? Social
catastrophe, martial law and the final destruction of the
American Republic. What did Rome get when she fell, devastated
by taxes and control? The barbarians and the Dark Ages. What
did Germany's Weimar Republic get when she was shattered by
hyperinflation? Adolph Hitler and the Nazis.
That is the future that awaits us, should we continue our
present course: and not in some far-off, distant time, but in
the next few years. Is that the "American Dream" you'd like to
experience for yourself and your children?
And, if not, what do you intend to do about it? Sitting on
your butt, collecting a "welfare" check and voting for more
of the same is no longer an acceptable answer.
If you think it is, you might choose to ponder the words of
one of America's Founding Fathers who had a much better grasp
of the issue: "If ye love wealth better than
liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest
of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or
arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your
chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you
were our countrymen!" (Samuel Adams, Philadelphia State
House Speech, 1776.)
As for the rest of us, isn't it about time we rolled up our
sleeves?
Bradley Harrington is a former United States Marine and a
free-lance writer who lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
As Brad asks, "what do you intend to do about it?"
In addition to the usual actions of writing and speaking out against
the policies that are leading to the decline and fall of America, here
are some activist-oriented organizations to investigate. If you find
one that meets your requirement, join in and add your efforts to the
cause of restoring liberty to America.
If you know of other good activist organizations or actions that
you would like to recommend, please sent them to me and I will include
them on this list.
Subject: The Second American Revolution: It's Time To Make Your
Stand
Today, Ben Nelson, the senator from Nebraska, declared that he is
going to support the Senate's health care bill as the 60th member
of a Democratic coalition that has no Republican support. As reported
in
The Huffington Post:
"The Nevada Democrat [Harry Reid] agreed to a series
of concessions on abortion and other issues demanded by
Nelson"
Other concessions? What could those be?
"The Nebraskan [Nelson] also won increased federal
funds to cover his state's cost of covering an expanded
Medicaid population at a cost that one Democratic official
put at $45 million over a decade"
So taxpayers in other states will now also pick up the cost of expanded
health care for Nebraska's residents similar to provisions that Harry
Reid managed to write into the bill for Nevada citizens. Well, why
not? It's all in keeping with the Obama administration's master plan
for wealth redistribution. You still have some wealth left, and
therefore it obviously needs to be redistributed to others. But is
that the only last minute piece of pork added to the bill? Of course
not.
"Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., claimed credit for a
last-minute, $10 billion increase in funding for community
health centers nationwide"
"Another provision in Reid's changes provides additional
federal funding for hospitals in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming
and the Dakotas, although no cost estimate was available."
"The revised bill also calls for a .9 percent increase in
the Medicare payroll tax on incomes over $200,000 for
individuals and $250,000 for couples. Reid's earlier bill had
a smaller hike, .5 percent."
"The bill also taxes high-cost insurance plans"
Read Robert Tracinski's article,
You Will Lose Your Private Health Insurance for a concise
summary of the true implications and impact of the final legislation
that will soon be voted on once the House and Senate bills are
reconciled.
With the imminent passage of the health care legislation, it is
finally time to take a firm and uncompromising stand. As was stated
over 233 years ago in The Declaration of
Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just
Powers from the consent of the governed, — That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation
on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as
to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
long established should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind
are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to
provide new guards for their future security, ..."
[Emphasis added]
Unlike the TARP bailouts, and other incursions into the US economy,
which, with stretched-to-the-limit incredulity, might charitably be
credited as horribly misguided efforts with underlying good intent,
no such claim could possibly be made for the Congressional health
care bills. These are nothing more than a naked power-grab, granting
to the government a significant increase in the direct control over
the personal lives and decisions of every in America, intentionally
destroying individual liberty.
It is time to choose a side of the single greatest issue facing
America, and declare your allegiance either to tyranny or to freedom.
The time for the Second American Revolution is now at hand.
It is up to every freedom-loving person to commit all of their
intellectual, physical and financial resources to the cause of
liberty. We must retake control of a government which no longer
represents us - or else, we must abolish it. As we have seen
demonstrated time after time over the past year, the opportunity for
reasoned debate with the opposition has long since passed and the
moment has arrived to pull out all of the stops and take forceful
action on every possible front.
Remember Ayn Rand's observation:
"Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let
it extort from us"
Those committed to destroying the US Constitution and enslaving all
of us into serving their tyrannical ends will only succeed if we stand
by and allow them to do so. Recognizing this fact, it is up to us to
mount counter efforts. While new opportunities for action are being
organized and put into effect all across the country, there are many
things that can be done immediately. Here are some suggestions:
Step up your efforts to write and phone the White House
and all members of Congress. Commit a certain amount of time
each week to write new letters and make repeated calls to the
most deserving politicians. Don't tell them that you
disagree with their policies — tell them that
you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it
any longer! Let them know in no uncertain terms
that the gloves are coming off and that you are going to do
everything in your power to dismantle the corrupt machinery
of government and take back your constitutionally guaranteed
rights to your life, liberty and property. When they are
receiving this message from thousands of people all across
the country, they are going to get very nervous. Make it
your personal mission to make Nancy Pelosi cry.
And don't stop with her! Contact information for all congressional
members can be found at Congress Merge.
Write articles and letters-to-the-editor of your local paper
expressing your outrage over the constitutional transgressions
being exercised by Congress and the President. Help transition
the political dialog in country away from less important issues
of specific tax or legislative proposals to the critical issues
of constitutional rights. As Nancy Pelosi
and other politicians have demonstrated, they are completely
unprepared to defend themselves on constitutional grounds.
This makes them very vulnerable to attack from this quarter.
Get involved with your local
Tea Party chapter and
help organize local and state protests. Generate as much noise
and publicity as possible. Again, the message should now become
not one of simple disagreement, but a vocalization of honest
outrage and a principled unwillingness to voluntarily comply with
the intent of Congress and the President. Become conscientious
objectors - unwilling to participate in your own enslavement.
Start planning your strategy for the
2010 Tax Day Tea
Party on April 15th. Organize family and friends and come
up with a creative idea that will generate publicity and
convey your personal message to as many people as possible.
Make plans to go to Washington DC when the next Tea Party
march gets scheduled in 2010. If the press thought that 1.2
million protesters was "a few thousand", let's see what they
have to say when we make it 3 million or more!
Show your commitment and make a symbolic statement with a
Personal Declaration of Independence, by adding your
name to the John
Galt Pledge, if you have not done so already.
Link
to this article on your personal blogs and help spread the word
that the time for action is upon us.
Working together, we will form an irresistible force that will beat
back the destroyers of freedom.
In Liberty,
—
C. Jeffery Small
Subject: A Patriot's Open Letter
This open
letter, written by Bradley Harrington to our political
representatives, is an excellent articulation of the most fundamental
issue currently facing our country. We are in nothing less than a
battle for the enlightenment ideals of individualism, unalienable
human rights and liberty that is embodied in our Declaration of
Independence and Constitution.
A PATRIOT'S OPEN LETTER
By Bradley Harrington
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility
against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
— Thomas Jefferson, Letter To Benjamin Rush, 1800 —
An Open Letter To Our "Representatives" In The United States
Government:
As a patriot, and as a former military veteran, I need to tell
you a few things. I know that you folks have a lot to do, and
don't really want to take the time to listen to me. But I
strongly suggest that you do; for that attitude, you
see—of being to "busy" to listen to the people who
populate this country—is part of the problem I need to
discuss with you.
For hundreds of years, people like me have kept this nation
strong and free. Many of us are currently serving America in
the Middle East; a lot of us still surviving served in Vietnam.
Our fathers served in Korea; our grandfathers in World War II;
our great-grandfathers in World War I.
All the way back, we have fought, sweated, battled, bled and
died to protect our nation from attack. Whenever you called
upon us to serve, we were there. We didn't question your
right to send us off to war; we assumed that you had our
ideals at heart; we believed that you knew what you were
doing, and we unhesitatingly took out whoever you named as
our enemies. Hundreds of thousands of us were killed in
that process—but, as long as we knew that we were
defending liberty's torch, even the laying down of our lives
was not too high a price to pay.
In the Revolutionary War, we fought to separate ourselves from
the tyranny of King George III and to establish this nation,
"conceived in liberty," as a safe haven for individuals to
peacefully live their lives and pursue their happiness. Those
were, and are, our ideals, and we have always viewed America,
her history and her institutions as mankind's last, best and
greatest hope. And, for many decades, our efforts and
achievements enabled our nation to shine as a magnificent
beacon to the "poor and huddled masses" yearning to be free.
"Patriotism," to us, you see, is not blindly following our
leaders wherever they might lead: it is respect for, and
admiration of, the principles of freedom that animated the
creation of the United States. It is a profound passion we
have, at the very core of our souls, in regard to man's
unconquerable mind and the indomitability of the human spirit.
Patriotism, to us, is not loyalty to a government, but loyalty
to an idea, and it drives all of our thoughts and actions:
the idea that men and women have a right to be free.
Have you been doing your job as well as we have been doing
ours? Have you been as true to the ideals our nation was
founded upon as we have? Or have you used your power to
"engage in a long train of abuses and usurpations?"
(Declaration of Independence, 1776.)
Today, we observe that you and your laws have reduced our
economy to a shambles; have aided and abetted the destruction
of our social order; hampered the processes of our courts;
stifled our productive capacities; and ensnared the citizens
of this nation in a web of offensive and arbitrary decrees
that can be designed for one purpose only: to turn us into
serfs. And, now, as you sit in your citadels of power in
Washington, D.C., you tell us, when we protest, that you are
"busy." Busy doing what? Taking away our liberties and
turning this once-proud, once-free nation into a shoddy,
second-class "welfare" state?
I respectfully suggest that you'd better think again: for not
all of us are mindless automatons to be led like sheep to the
slaughter. Many of us know our history, and have read the
Declaration, and are fully aware of the part that says:
"That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to
abolish it..."
We military patriots haven't perished in one war after another
so that you, our so-called "representatives," could destroy
the ideals we have always combated to defend; we fought one
revolution to protect those ideals in 1776. So, take notice:
if you, in your colossally arrogant, controlling ignorance,
continue to take us down this corridor of coercion, we might
just decide that it is time to do it again.
Bradley Harrington is a former United States Marine and a
free-lance writer who lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Subject: Thanksgiving: Learning How to Appreciate Your Rights
Joe Galloway is a combat journalist and author of the book "We Were
Soldiers Once ... and Young". On a recent book tour through Lubbock,
TX, he offered his views on military conscription, as reported in this article from Texas Tech:
"When I was growing up, there was a draft," he said.
"We fought World War II, Korea, and Vietnam on the draft,
and nobody liked it, but it reached out and pulled in Americans
from all walks of life, and that wasn't a bad thing at all.
"We are a nation of 300 million people and fewer than one
percent of us wear the uniform and do all of the serving
and sacrificing for all of the other 299 million, and they've
been worked pretty hard these last eight years."
The U.S. dropped the draft system after the Vietnam War, but
Galloway said he believes the United States would benefit
from some program that compelled young men and women into
national service, creating more appreciation for the
liberties they enjoy as Americans.
In a video interview attached to the article, Mr. Galloway states:
"I don't think that's what the Founding Fathers had in mind
when they set things up. They thought you had to earn your
freedom and democracy"
This got me thinking about the issue of Americans appreciating or
failing to appreciate certain aspects of their lives, and I am in
agreement with Galloway that many people in the U.S. have no real
understanding of the nature of their individual rights, including
their liberty, and therefore fail to properly appreciate them. But
I cannot agree with Galloway's solution — the same one being
proposed by the Obama administration — which is to violate
those very rights in an effort to teach people to treasure them!
The "right to life" identifies that each person's life is
sacrosanct and may not be violated by another, while the "right
to liberty" means that each individual may select their own goals
and pursuits in accordance with their will, free from external
compulsion. I am sure that it is true that if you conscript a
person into national service for a few years against their will,
command their every move during that period, and place them in
combat situations where their very life is in grave danger, if they
survive the experience and are once again freed, most people will
come away with a deeper appreciation for their life and their
liberty. Of course, the same thing can be said for a survivor of a
Siberian Gulag,
and, in principle, there is no real difference between these two
situations, as both are violations of the rights of the individual.
I also disagree with Galloway's interpretation of the Founding Father's
intentions with regards to our rights. The Declaration of Independence
states that we possess:
"certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
which means that these rights are absolute and an indivisible part of
our human nature. Quoting from
unalienable.com:
The absolute rights of individuals may be resolved into the
right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and
the right to acquire and enjoy property. These rights are
declared to be natural, inherent, and unalienable.
[Atchison & N. R. Co. v. Baty, 6 Neb. 37, 40,
29 Am. Rep. 356.]
By the "absolute rights" of individuals is meant those which
are so in their primary and strictest sense, such as would
belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which
every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in
it. The rights of personal security, of personal liberty, and
private property do not depend upon the Constitution for their
existence. They existed before the Constitution was made, or
the government was organized. These are what are termed the
"absolute rights" of individuals, which belong to them
independently of all government, and which all governments
which derive their power from the consent of the governed were
instituted to protect. [People v. Berberrich
(N. Y.) 20 Barb. 224, 229; McCartee v. Orphan Asylum Soc.
(N. Y.) 9 Cow. 437, 511, 513, 18 Am. Dec. 516; People v.
Toynbee (N. Y.) 2 Parker, Cr. R. 329, 369, 370 (quoting 1 Bl.
Comm. 123).]
Clearly, if our rights are inherent, unalienable and exist outside of
the Constitution and any formation of government, then they are not
something that need to be earned. As the Declaration of Independence
clearly states, governments are not formed in order to dispense rights,
but instead:
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the
governed"
The original purpose of our government's formation was to protect and
defend the individual rights of each citizen. It is some twisted form
of Orwellian illogic that concludes that those fundamental rights are
protected by their violation! And it is the cruelest perversion when
this method is applied to young, developing minds as is currently
being done in public school civic classes all across the nation. In
the name of "service-learning", school children are forced to perform
hours of "community service" work while any discussion of the nature
of individual rights and the guarantees of those rights in the U.S.
Constitution are buried. And this is after these same children have
already been conscripted into forced education.
People's gaps in knowledge, resulting in a corresponding failure to
grasp the true value of a thing, is certainly not limited to the
abstract concepts of individual rights. If one believes that it is
the government's function to determine what is of value for each of
us, and that it is the government's further role to educate us to
appreciate those values, even if force must be applied to achieve
that goal, then, in the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, let's
consider another program that might be implemented.
I suggest that every American be required to live in an isolated log
cabin in northern Minnesota for a period of two years: heating their
home with wood that must be cut, hauled and split; getting water from
a stream which must then be purified by boiling; using candles or
open pit fires for light; butchering their own meat; plowing, planting,
growing and harvesting their own crops; and maintaining the structure
as required, including building an optional outhouse if desired. Of
course, everyone would be encouraged to explore sources of alternative
energy, sustainable forestry, organic farming, low-impact waste
management, and energy conservation in their spare time. I know with
absolute certainty that anyone surviving this wonderful experience
would have "earned" a much greater respect and honest appreciation
for: the hot dog that they purchase at their grocery store; the
gallon of gasoline that they pump into their automobile; the flush
of a toilet; the flick of a switch that floods the room with light;
the push of a button that raises the room temperature by a few
degrees; the convenience of picking up the telephone and calling a
roofer when a leak is discovered; the simple pleasure of a conversation
with another person; and so much more!
If forced military, national or community-service are good ideas that
are justified due to their beneficial effect upon the conscriptee,
then I can see no argument against this proposal which would have
considerably more beneficial impact. Impact being the
operative word!
Of course, I'm kidding. I would never suggest that a program
like this was in any way justified in being imposed upon citizens of
a free country. I was just making a point about individual rights
and why conscription is wrong in principle. However, if someone
were to suggest that we make this a requirement for anyone running
for political office, then you would have my attention!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Subject: We Own You. Get Used to It!
On today's OpEd page, a Wall Street Journal editorial
highlights the true goal of ObamaCare, as articulated by one of its
supporters, John Cassidy of the New Your Times.
Confessions of an ObamaCare Backer
The typical argument for ObamaCare is that it will offer better
medical care for everyone and cost less to do it, but
occasionally a supporter let's the mask slip and reveals the
real political motivation. So let's give credit to John
Cassidy, part of the left-wing stable at the New Yorker,
who wrote last week on its Web site that "it's important to
be clear about what the reform amounts to."
Mr. Cassidy is more honest than the politicians whose
dishonesty he supports. "The U.S. government is making a
costly and open-ended commitment," he writes. "Let's not
pretend that it isn't a big deal, or that it will be
self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as
planned. It won't. What is really unfolding, I suspect,
is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama
Administration . . . is creating a new entitlement program,
which, once established, will be virtually impossible to
rescind."
Why are they doing it? Because, according to Mr. Cassidy,
ObamaCare serves the twin goals of "making the United States
a more equitable country" and furthering the Democrats'
"political calculus." In other words, the purpose is to
further redistribute income by putting health care further
under government control, and in the process making the
middle class more dependent on government. As the party
of government, Democrats will benefit over the long run.
This explains why Nancy Pelosi is willing to risk the seats
of so many Blue Dog Democrats by forcing such an unpopular
bill through Congress on a narrow, partisan vote: You have to
break a few eggs to make a permanent welfare state. As Mr.
Cassidy concludes, "Putting on my amateur historian's cap,
I might even claim that some subterfuge is historically
necessary to get great reforms enacted."
No wonder many Americans are upset. They know they are being
lied to about ObamaCare, and they know they are going to be
stuck with the bill.
So there you have it. It's OK for the politicians to lie to us,
because they own us and operate from a position where they can freely
make critical decisions about our lives without regard to our own
personal thoughts, beliefs and desires. Truth is reserved for those
possessing the right to self-determination, so let there be no illusion
that the concepts of the right to one's life, liberty and property
have anything at all to do with what is now occurring in this country.
We are effectively all slaves of the state and subject to whatever whim
it manages to concoct and ram through as legislation. The limitations
on allowable government action that are delineated in the US
Constitution are being totally ignored by all three branches of our
government. We are rapidly becoming a totalitarian state.
Sign the John Galt
Pledge and then contact each of your Senators and Representative
and let them know, in forceful terms, that you are not
asking, but demanding that they adhere to the
intent of the US Constitution and expect them to protect and defend
your constitutional rights. It is time to let everyone in Washington
know that you are mad and have reached the limits of your
patience.
Subject: Involuntary Servitude for All
Reader Leslie Carbone, the author of Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform, brought to
my attention an interesting article that she wrote back in November
2008 titled, Emanuel Proposes Slavery. In this piece she
discusses Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama's call for the creation of
a "Civilian National Security Force" that would conscript every
American into a mandatory period of national service for the purpose
of:
"basic training, civil defense preparation and community
service."
With terms like "basic training" and "community service",
it's duces wild as to what the government could do with – or to
you during your period of conscription.
Now Rahm is a nice guy, and he is only proposing a three month period
of mandatory service. And if you buy that, then you must think
that the top income tax rate is 7%
and that your Social Security number will never be used as a
means of identification.
A program like this is always proposed as a small thing, which then
quickly expands to feed the bottomless pit that is our federal, state
and local governments.
There were a few issues raised in the comments section to Leslie's
article that I would like to address here.
A couple of the readers complained about the use of the term
"slavery" being applied to this proposal, when it was simply
"temporary compulsory service" and, as one reader put it,
"that's all." . Well, this sort of semantic argument is about
as interesting as calculating the number of angel dancing on the head
of a pin. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution states:
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction."
Emanuel's plan certainly qualifies as involuntary servitude,
so it is clearly unconstitutional. And as far as I am concerned,
every form of involuntary servitude is a form of slavery and
vice versa. The duration of the servitude is immaterial because we
each possess an unalienable right to our lives - and that is an
absolute. And so long as we refrain from violating the rights of
others, no entity, whether they be another individual, a group or
a government, may morally lay claim to one one moment of your life.
Some of Leslie's readers also commented on the fact that we have
had compulsory military service in this country, on and off,
throughout our history, and what Emanuel is proposing is nothing
different. Of course, these arguments were meant to defend this
new form of conscription on the grounds of "tradition".
But that argument doesn't hold water if you read the 13th Amendment.
It contains no exception to the ban on involuntary servitude, other
than as punishment for a crime. The truth is that military
conscription or a "draft" is unconstitutional as well. As one
of the commentators put it: "Compulsory military service IS
involuntary servitude, which IS slavery". The use of conscription
in this country has been a travesty to our rights and any future
attempt to reinstate a draft must be opposed on constitutional
grounds.
Now, I am a huge supporter of our military as an absolutely essential
institution, required to protect our lives, rights and freedom, and I
have deep respect for anyone who commits themselves to that job. But
the fact that I see this function as important, does not somehow grant
me the special privilege of then being able to force someone else to
provide that service against their will. The only proper way for a
free people to interact with one another is voluntarily, with the
initiation of force prohibited. And this is especially true when
dealing with the government, which is charged as the repository of
retaliatory force, to be used strictly in service of our
protection. When the government steps over that bright line, as ours
did long ago, and begins to initiate force against its citizens,
then it is time to do what our forefathers once proclaimed in the
Declaration
of Independence:
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive
of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to
abolish it, and to institute new Government"
Whether our current form of government can be salvaged, or whether
it has become so corrupted that it must be replaced, is something
worth carefully considering.
Subject: Lockport Township, IL High School Moves Towards Mandatory
Community Service
As reported today in
The Homer Horizon:
The Lockport Township High School District 205 Board of
Education on Monday, Sept. 22, moved a step closer to adding
community service as a curriculum requirement for students.
Board members voted 5 to 2 to approve the first of two steps
that would enact the policy to require community service hours
of students, with a final vote on the matter scheduled to take
place at the next board meeting on Monday, Oct. 19.
Under the policy, the mandated service hours would be phased-in
to all classes beginning in the fall of 2010. Seniors (Class of
2011) would be required to complete 10 hours of service,
juniors 20 hours, sophomores 30 hours and freshmen 40 hours. [...]
Michael Lewandowski and John Lukasik voted against the policy,
with Lewandowski speaking out against the proposal during
discussion at the Sept. 22 meeting.
"Should we encourage our students to help the community? Yes.
Should we force them to help the community? No." Lewandowski
said. "Doing this voluntary is one thing but forcing them to
do it is another.
"We shouldn't force our students to do something against their
will in order to graduate."
Lewandowski worried the policy would provoke "incrementalism."
"We've all seen how the government can creep into our lives,"
he said after reading to the board the 13th Amendment. "I don't
want the federal, state or local government to say, 'well, the
school district have approved this, so we can, too.'"
Board member Angela Kamely responded to Lewandowski's statements.
"We're doing this as a graduation requirement, not as a right to
live," she said. "I support helping make a more well-rounded
student."
And with that mere flourish, Ms. Kamely brushes away the 13th Amendment
and the rights of the students. Hey, it's only their education, not
their lives!
And just as a reminder: The Thirteenth Amendment to the United
States Constitution states:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction. Congress shall have the power
to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Oh well, it's just a technicality. What's more important is to
shape a "more well-rounded student" — in Angela Kamely's image.
Subject: The Purpose of The John Galt Pledge Initiative
The United States of America is at a tipping point, where individual
rights and personal freedom now hang precariously in the balance. As
we move forward, will we be the masters of our own lives, deciding for
ourselves what goals to pursue and how best to allocate our personal
resources in service of those goals? Or will we allow ourselves to
be treated as children, handing more and more of the decision-making
over to the government, demanding that it assume the obligation of
providing for all of our wants and needs? The price for abdicating
responsibility for one's life is the forfeiting of one's freedom.
Those of us committed to the path of personal autonomy must fight for
our freedom if we are to retain what remains, and regain what has been
lost since the founding of this country. My purpose for this site is
to create another effective tool in that battle for liberty.
There are many avenues available for engaging in this struggle.
Writing letters-to-the-editor, op-ed pieces, articles for magazines,
blog entries or forum posts is one. This is a one-to-one type of
activity where the individual writer communicates directly to the
individual reader. Another is the use of organized protests. The
Tea Parties are a good example of this technique, and on September
12th, many citizens will descend upon Washington D.C. to march in
protest against the current administration's policies. This is a
many-to-one activity, where the ultimate effectiveness of the action
is directly proportional to the number of participants. For example,
if 300 people show up in D.C. on the 12th, that might generate a page
six mention in most newspapers. However, if 80,000 people march,
then it becomes headline news which will have a profoundly greater
impact.
[OK, I guess I was proven wrong on that count. You can ignore
80,000 people. You can even ignore a million! All the more reason
to make sure that we do get our message out.]
The goal of this initiative is to create a permanent public record of
protest that can later be referenced as a kickoff point for many
different types of campaigns. But where the message of the Tea Party
protests have been diffuse, I want the ideological message of this
site to be strictly focused upon one critical point:
We demand that the government protect, not violate, the
constitutionally guaranteed rights of every independent
citizen
In order to have this demand taken seriously, it requires an outcry of
protest loud enough that it cannot be ignored. So just as with the
gathering in D.C., the number of people signing up here to show their
agreement with the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of
the individual is critical. And that is why I encourage you
to participate, and then do what you can to make other like-minded
individuals aware of this opportunity to also engage in this action.
Once a critical mass has been reached here, showing broad-based support
for our constitutional rights, I would then encourage all of us to
continue to become involved in other forms of education and protest
that are of personal urgency. This might include arguments against
nationalized health care, wealth redistribution, corporate bailouts,
government control of the money supply, interference in the economy,
national service, cap-and-trade, etc. Regardless of the specific
topic, I would suggest that as part of the analysis, it should be
shown that the proper position to take is the one which supports
the rights of the individual, as delineated by the U.S.
Constitution. And this site can be referenced to show the level
of support that exists for making the protection of our rights a key
requirement when considering any piece of legislation.
The value of this approach is that it provides an ideological basis
for every issue, which is ultimately grounded on an unassailable
constitutional foundation. Those arguing from a different viewpoint
can then be reduced to either having to defend the Constitution
themselves, or acknowledging their lack of support for that document.
If this approach is used effectively, the entire tenor of the debate
could be shifted from an ever evolving discussion of numerous pragmatic
concerns to a very focused one of fundamental principles. And I can
guarantee that those who are currently working feverishly to destroy
our freedom cannot stand up to the scrutiny of fundamental principles.
So the goal for this initiative comes in two parts:
Phase one: Promote this site in order to reach a wide audience
and allow every liberty-minded person the opportunity to
contribute their support to this effort, creating a document
that acquires power through the number of individuals standing
behind it.
Phase two: Attack the government's proposals on ideological
grounds by demonstrating that in violating rather than
supporting our individual rights, they have no constitutional
authority to proceed.
In closing, let me add one additional point. It is important to
remember that, as individuals, each of us speak only for ourselves.
By signing this personal Declaration of Independence, each
person is indicating their support only for the ideas explicitly
expressed in the pledge, and not for the words or actions of any
other person. Please feel free to reference the
list when
making a point about the level of support for our constitutional rights,
but do not assume or assert that anyone on the list supports your
personal approach or viewpoints in fighting the battle for freedom.
Suggestions
I am very interested in receiving feedback and suggestions
regarding this project, and I would enjoy hearing any ideas you
may have for related activities. Interesting ideas, suitable
for a wide audience, will be displayed on this page. Click on
the button below to contact me by email.
--
C. Jeffery Small
Please add me to the list to be notified of updates to this site.
Rand Paul
